


The Eye of God

by qlstrange



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Asexual Sherlock, Long, Multi, Novel, Plot Twists, Plotty, Wholock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-28
Updated: 2012-02-28
Packaged: 2017-10-31 21:12:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 66,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/348413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qlstrange/pseuds/qlstrange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty take their fateful plunge off Reichenbach Falls and land in the TARDIS as it's sideways and on fire. Things go downhill from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Death Moss

**Author's Note:**

> This story contains angst (buckets), death (kind of), and ends with a series of plot twists that may give you whiplash.
> 
> Begins just after "The End of Time", or 1891, depending on your point of view.

It seemed silly for the TARDIS to flash the word "WARNING" over and over. He knew he was in danger. The primary engines were cycling down to zero, the back-up engines were gone, the modulation matrix was shot…

Also the console was on fire.

He flipped a switch and it didn't help. In fact, it caused the entire ship to rock to one side, and he grabbed hold of the zigzag plotter for dear life. As the TARDIS swayed and shook and tumbled through space, the front doors clattered open. He could hear running water outside, but he had more pressing issues on his mind than what planet and time period he happened to have fallen into.

The Doctor was dangling sideways off the console, both hands still gripping the zigzag plotter. If he could just reach the emergency stabilizers, he might be able to at least not fall to his death in his own space ship.

_Clong_. Crack!

Right at that moment, two men plummeted through the open doors and went hurtling past the console into the back hallway.

There was a splash. The Doctor supposed that they must have landed in the swimming pool, wherever that had gotten to.

The TARDIS suddenly righted itself again as the emergency stabilizers began to take effect. He landed, with precious little dignity, on his face on the floor of the console room. It was still on fire, but at least the threat of falling had been taken care of. He scrambled back up to his feet.

"Emergency landing!" he screamed at the console, hoping that it might help somehow as he smacked wildly at buttons and yanked blindly at levers. "Emergency landing!"

The engines groaned and wheezed. The doors slammed shut again. They took off through time and space, and the TARDIS didn't seem to like it all that much.

"Yes!" he said. "Good!"

He ran down to the swimming pool, but it was empty. He followed the water down another hallway. The two gentlemen who'd so rudely fallen into his TARDIS were both splayed out on the floor of the library, sopping wet. The pool must have buggered off somewhere else.

"Hello," the Doctor said as the engines' roaring got louder and louder. "Not that I want to alarm you more than you've already been alarmed, but we have about thirty-six seconds before the inside of this ship reaches twenty thousand degrees."

One of the men lifted his head and spat out a mouthful of water. The other one appeared to be unconscious.

"I know what you're thinking," the Doctor said, "why would the inside of an otherwise habitable machine become twenty thousand degrees hotter? The truth is that it's a very old model and internal self-repair uses the slightly outdated method of pressure reorganization. Suffice to say that if we don't get out very soon we're all going to be cooked."

The one who was still conscious looked around. "Right," he said after a moment.

"Who's your friend?" the Doctor asked, perhaps a bit too conversationally.

"He's dead," he answered as he slowly pulled himself to his feet. He was in a black frock, waistcoat, and trousers with a gray cravat.

"Funny sort of name," mused the Doctor. "Oh, you mean  _dead_. Like the adjective."

"Yes." He stumbled forward, pushing his wet black hair out of his face. "I've lost my hat."

The Doctor very seriously considered spending the remaining twenty-four seconds in search of it, because a good and cool hat was hard to come by. But after a moment of consideration, he shook his head.

"I'll get you a new one. How's that? We really should go. Come along."

He grabbed him by the shoulders and steered him out of the TARDIS, which was still on fire and now making even more strange and upsetting noises. The Doctor had to kick open the door, but they managed to stumble out just as the console room was filling with smoke.

They both stepped back and watched the windows on the blue box glow bright golden. Neither of them said anything for a little while.

"Hello, I'm the Doctor."

"Charmed, I'm sure," answered the wet, skinny fellow in the waistcoat.

"Did the fall kill your friend?"

"He wasn't my friend," he replied, "and no. He was dead before we fell."

"Oh," the Doctor said, "I see."

Another lapse of silence. Smoke was curling out from the cracks in the TARDIS door.

"Is your race hostile?" the wet, skinny one asked suddenly.

The Doctor studied his unexpected guest. Aside from the obvious facts that he was wet, skinny, and probably from 19th century England, the Doctor couldn't tell much about him.

"No," the Doctor said slowly. "Well, not usually. Although if we were, I don't think asking whether or not we were hostile would be to much benefit."

"I thought it would be more polite to ask. You were, after all, good enough to catch me from what certainly would have been a fatal plummet." Then he sneezed into his sleeve. "What was that pool full of?"

"I'm not entirely sure," the Doctor answered honestly. "At any rate, it shouldn't be very deadly. Not for humans at least. You are a human, right?"

"Yes," he confirmed. "And yourself?"

"Time Lord."

"I see." He sniffed and batted away a wet bit of hair from his eyes. "That's a bit pretentious-sounding. No offense."

"None taken." And then, something suddenly occurred to the Doctor and it was very important. "How did you know I was an alien?"

"It's obvious, isn't it?" the skinny, wet one returned. "Your eyes are permanently dilated, but you don't squint. No matter your environment you always take in the maximum amount of light without any apparent damage. Not a human characteristic."

"Humans evolve," the Doctor reminded him.

"Not away from things that help preserve us." He sneezed again. "Might I accost you for a handkerchief? My own is of little use to me when it's wet."

The Doctor rummaged through his pockets, past the baseball bat and the trombone and the crown jewels of the Sixth Emperor of Norgannon-6, and found a monogrammed kerchief with the initials S.V.L. At one point it had belonged to a lovely young heiress in the year three million. The skinny, wet one nodded his thanks and blew his nose.

"Not many people notice that," the Doctor said. "Who are you?"

He didn't answer immediately. He turned away from the TARDIS and looked up and around. The Doctor had almost forgotten about the emergency landing. They could be anywhere.

"I'm on a different planet with an alien and his time-travelling blue box that's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside," said the skinny, wet one, in a very British keep-calm-and-carry-on sort of way. "All right."

The Doctor was about to ask how he knew they were on a different planet, but then he noticed that the sky was violet.

"Who are you?" the Doctor asked again, more gravely. "This is important."

The skinny, wet one looked back at the Doctor, his gray eyes smart and shining. "My name is Sherlock Holmes," he said. "Now where are we?"

" _Sherlock Holmes?_ " He couldn't believe his luck. He'd run into all sorts of interesting people in his time, but never before by having them literally fall into his TARDIS. "What, really? You're not having a go?"

"You're the one with the time machine and it's I that's lying?"

The Doctor could see it now: tall, graceful, aquiline, and so very, very British. All he was missing was the pipe and deerstalker cap. Apparently the latter had been his fault. He hoped that it wouldn't be incinerated by the TARDIS during reconstruction.

He smiled and it nearly split his face in two. "I'll be damned!" he said, reaching out and grabbing one of his hands with both of his own. "Sherlock Holmes! What an honor!"

The Doctor shook his hand so vigorously that Holmes looked a bit nauseous.

"Yes," Holmes said unsteadily. "Now if I may be so forward as to ask again: where are we?"

"Ehm." The Doctor looked around. Purple sky, white grass, clear mountains, and the air smelled a bit like day-old anchovies. That narrowed it down to 619 different planets at various points in time. "No idea. Sorry."

Holmes looked a bit off-put. "And how long till it's safe to reenter your time machine?"

The Doctor scratched the crux of his jaw. "An hour or two at the very most."

"That would make us stranded, then," Holmes said, looking out at the glass mountains again.

"No, no, no," the Doctor said, with a dismissive gesture of his hand, "not  _stranded_ , just… inconveniently and temporarily displaced!"

"Ergo, stranded," Holmes summarized.

"Yes, okay. But only for a  _little_  while." The Doctor pointed at him for emphasis. "Besides, look around! You're standing on an alien planet! I  _know_  you're curious."

Holmes looked out again at the horizon. In the distance, trees with white leaves swayed in the wind, and there was hollow, haunting music coming from somewhere far away.

"I'm on an alien planet," Holmes said again, as if trying to acclimate himself to the idea. "I can't see any immediate signs of sentient life, can you?"

"No," the Doctor admitted, somewhat reluctantly, "but that doesn't mean there isn't any. There might be yet."

Right at that moment, an enormous silver space ship came roaring across the sky. Sherlock Holmes and the Doctor watched in astonishment as it crashed a few miles off, with such force that the ground beneath their feet trembled.

"Well," said the Doctor.

"Well," said Sherlock Holmes.

"I don't suppose you want to go—"

But he was already sprinting towards the trees. The Doctor smiled madly to himself.

This would be one to remember.

 

o :: o :: o

 

By the time they got to the wreck site, Holmes had dried somewhat, at least to the point that he was no longer dripping.

The immense silver ship lay broken in two, still smoking and, in parts, flaming. The Doctor could tell, even through it was now mostly destroyed, that it had once been a gorgeous ship (not as gorgeous as his TARDIS, of course, but then nothing really was): long and curved with wide external thrusters and two prongs extending from the back on each side.

They stood for a while at the crest of a hill that overlooked the wreckage in silence.

The Doctor looked at Holmes, grinning. "What can you make of it?" he asked.

Holmes glanced back at him with a small frown. "I have no data yet," was his composed response. "It's a mistake to theorize in advance of the data. Insensibly—"

"—one begins twisting facts to suit theories rather than theories to suit facts?" the Doctor finished, giggling stupidly. "This is brilliant. I've always wanted to meet you."

Holmes's frown grew deeper still. "Who are you, really?"

"I told you, I'm the Doct—" He gripped his chest suddenly and fell to his knees, feeling that unpleasant heat in his hearts. Holmes, alarmed, knelt down beside him and put a hand on his back. "Don't worry," the Doctor managed to wheeze, "this is perfectly normal—!"

A plume of swirling golden mist escaped from between his lips and twirled up into the sky. Holmes watched it for a while before returning his attentions to the Doctor, who was now sitting back on his calves and admiring the subtle golden glow around his hands.

"Other than the Doctor, though," he said, "I have no idea who I am. I'm not done yet."

"Will these paroxysms be frequent?" Holmes asked, still eyeing him.

"Shouldn't be!" he answered, using Holmes's shoulder as a grip and pulling himself to his feet. "Wasn't wonky like last time, so I should be quite all right."

He seemed skeptical (and more than a little curious), the Doctor noticed, but unwilling to argue without all the facts at his disposal. "Very well," Holmes said. "Shall we, then?"

Together they skidded down the sharply descending hill towards the wreck of a ship. Chalky white gravel crunched beneath their feet, leaving behind clouds of dust.

"I forgot to ask," the Doctor said as they hit the bottom of the slope, "who was that fellow you fell in with?"

"His name was Moriarty."

The Doctor's eyes widened almost imperceptibly.

"The name is familiar to you," Holmes said, and it wasn't a question.

"Well, what do I know?" he asked carefully, rhetorically. "I'm just a daft old man with a box."

"You don't look old," Holmes pointed out. "Although your eyes do."

"Good," the Doctor said. He was happy with old-looking eyes. They made him seem wiser than he was.

"The air is acrid," said Holmes. They'd come to the edge of the ship and stopped by an opening that had been split open in the side of the hull at impact. "Is it safe to breathe?"

"Probably." The Doctor couldn't detect anything particularly lethal for humans: various compounds of nitrogen, carbon, and neon with just a dash of zinc. There was also the undertone of something that smelled like spoiled lettuce.

"That doesn't instill much faith."

"Very probably?"

Holmes sighed and found a foothold on a twisted piece of sheet metal, pulling himself inside. The Doctor grinned and followed suit.

"What are the odds that any possible survivors will understand English?" Holmes asked, ducking under a broken rafter.

"Don't worry about that. My ship has a telepathic field that translates everything. Or, well, mostly everything. Just speak normally."

"How convenient. In that case –  _hello! Anyone there?_ "

His voice echoed endlessly through the twisting metal hallways. It was dark, with only the occasional red-tinted emergency light sputtering on a wall. The Doctor had no problem seeing, but Holmes had to occasionally grope out into the darkness to be sure he wasn't running into anything.

" _Hello?_ " Holmes called again

"There's a door about ten paces in front of you," said the Doctor. "You'll have to hit the button on the side to open it."

He felt around for the button for a while before he found it. The door slid open.

They ducked under the archway and found themselves in what the Doctor measured to be an internal docking bay for smaller cruisers. It was an immense room, with one wall crunched upward at an unnatural angle, most likely from the crash. Most of the docked ships had been destroyed in the wreck, but this room, at least, still had proper lighting. A large pillar of smoke rose upward through a large crack in the ceiling and some of the wires hanging from the ceiling would release the occasional, hazardous spark.

"I feel as if I've stepped into an H. G. Wells novel," Holmes said, though his sarcasm was softened by reverence of his surroundings.

"You'll soon get used to that," the Doctor replied as he grinned wildly and patted him on the back. "Do you smell that?"

"I smell naught but cinder."

"It smells familiar," the Doctor said as he racked his brain for the origin of that spoiled lettuce scent, which was getting stronger. "Where have I smelled it before?"

"Aaaaah!" cried a voice from behind. Someone was coming at them with a five-foot length of metal piping held aloft like a bludgeon, straight at Holmes.

Holmes, reacting in a manner that the Doctor thought was nothing short of exquisite, caught the pipe with both hands, wrenched it around and gave it a jerk forward. The end of the pipe hit his assailant square in the gut and sent her tumbling onto the ground. Then he flipped the pipe around in his hands and pointed it at her neck.

"Oh, Mr. Holmes!" the Doctor gushed. "I  _like_  you. You're hired!"

"Who are you?" Holmes demanded, his gray eyes sharp as razors and watching the stranger, who was quite short and had bright blue skin, black hair and black eyes, but who otherwise was a basic humanoid. She was in a white uniform and large boots.

"Who am  _I?_ " she returned, sounding offended. "Who are  _you?_ "

"I'm the one with the pipe, madam," Holmes reminded her, giving her a prod in the sternum with it. "It would therefore be advisable to answer my question first."

She glowered at him. "My name is Third Lieutenant Aurelia," she said. "Are you the ones that brought our ship down?"

"No," the Doctor said soothingly. "We're just here to help. I'm the Doctor and he's Sherlock Holmes."

"How can I trust you to that?" asked Third Lieutenant Aurelia, looking between the two of them with nothing but suspicion in her beady black eyes.

"Because of this," Holmes said, casting away the pipe and extending a hand towards her to help her up. After a moment of trepidation, she took it and used the leverage to pull herself to her feet.

"Smart, quick, fighting fit, but not without compassion!" the Doctor said. What a brilliant companion he'd make, he thought. "Exquisite!"

"Tell us everything that happened," said Holmes, soft and urgent, "and do not leave out a single detail. It may be more vital than you realize."

The Doctor giggled stupidly again.

She looked over her shoulder at the ships, which looked like giant, sleeping metal birds, and began:

"We were on our way back to Fiarrazin from Tetchiop-3," she said, "with our shipment in tow. Everything had gone well enough picking it up, and we were about halfway back when suddenly there was a fault in the power lines that ran through the cargo bay. We didn't think of it at the time – we sent a tech down to deal with it, but we didn't hear back from her. A while later, the main power core went dead."

Holmes looked to the Doctor with a questioning gaze, as if wondering whether or not he was following the technical details. The Doctor nodded.

"Was it a quasar pulse?" the Doctor asked.

"That's what we thought at first, but we couldn't start the core back up again. We thought it might have been a major system failure that started in the cargo bay, but when we got down there—"

Aurelia broke off. She looked a bit nauseous, going so far as to cover her mouth with one hand.

"The tech was…"

She was verging on inarticulacy. Her entire body was shaking when Holmes reached out and put a hand on her shoulder.

"The tech was what? Dead?"

Aurelia opened her mouth to answer but suddenly the lights in the large bay went out, one by one, until there was nothing but the dull red emergency lights. The Doctor straightened up and looked around, but could see nothing.

"Oh, God," Aurelia said faintly. "They're coming."

"Right, Holmes," the Doctor said as he scrambled over to his side. "Have I told you the rules about travelling with me yet?"

"You have not, no," Holmes answered.

"Do everything I say, don't ask stupid questions, and don't wander off. I think they're about to come in handy."

"And what are the rules pertaining to the undead?"

"The—?"

And then he saw: a tall, spindly creature, vaguely humanoid but with a long head, wide black eyes and fin-like hands was coming towards them. He – and the Doctor could tell it was a he – was shuffling towards them, movements jerky and uneven. A luminous green moss was growing all along the side of his head and down his left shoulder. He had an enormous, fatal gash running up his side.

"Zombies," the Doctor said as he took stock of the situation. "Space zombies. Okay. I hope the general rules still apply."

"That's Jakko," Aurelia squeaked. "Oh, God, they got him, too!"

Holmes picked up the pipe that Aurelia had tried to attack him with and held it out, assuming a defensive stance. Aurelia was quick to hide behind him.

"Can you understand me?" Holmes asked of the zombie.

But the zombie kept coming.

"We don't have to fight you. We can settle this diplomatically," Holmes said.

But the zombie kept coming.

"What is it you want from us?" demanded Holmes, his voice louder.

But the zombie kept coming.

Holmes steeled himself. "Suit yourself," he said, and with a spin on the ball of his foot he landed the pipe in the side of the zombie's chest. The force of it was hard enough to knock him to the ground several feet away.

"Run!" the Doctor volunteered, shooing them back into the corridor from whence they'd come.

They wound their way blindly through the darkened corridors.

"Which way to the cargo bay?" the Doctor asked as they ran.

"Why d'you want to go to the cargo bay?" Aurelia riposted.

"Because the problem started in the cargo bay," Holmes said as if it were perfectly obvious. "Not to mention that everything was fine until you picked up your shipment."

"Down this way," Aurelia said, taking a sharp right turn.

The path was blocked by another zombie, this time a blue-skinned being rather like Aurelia, but taller and male.

"Nolt!" Aurelia cried. Nolt's entire right side was covered in the same green moss, and he was lumbering towards them in the same manner as the first one.

"Alternate route!" Holmes said, keeping the pipe between them and the oncoming zombie. They ducked into another hallway.

"But that's Nolt," said Aurelia, who couldn't stop looking over her shoulder. "I saw him just a few minutes ago; he's my friend!"

"Somehow I don't think that's the case anymore," Holmes said, just before they stumbled through a doorway into the cargo bay. Holmes slammed it shut and put all his weight against it just before Nolt the zombie crashed against it in an attempt to get it open.

"Lumber?" the Doctor said as he looked around the cargo bay. "You transport lumber?"

Stocked from floor to ceiling were trunks of trees. They were immense in both girth and length, with the longer trunks extending the whole length of the already very long cargo bay. They'd been largely stripped of bark and branches. The Doctor could barely make out anything, though, as the whole room was lit only by scattered, red emergency lights.

"Tetchiop-3 is a forest planet," Aurelia said, her voice high and breathless and slightly whining from fear. "The trees there grow rapidly and immensely. It's the most popular spot in the galaxy for lumber."

Nolt the zombie crashed into the door again, but Holmes managed to hold it shut.

"We need something heavy to weigh against the door," he said. "Aurelia, any ideas?"

"We— we could use some of the barrels of bark!"

"Good. Go get some of those."

As Aurelia and Holmes worked together to weigh the door shut, the Doctor was looking around. The familiar spoiled lettuce smell was almost overpowering in this room. It was like a word hanging on the tip of his tongue, so painfully familiar but just out of reach.

"Nrgh!" the Doctor said. "Stupid head! Brand new brain and everything's not working. I'm missing something!"

_Clang_  went the door as Nolt the zombie gave a particularly dramatic effort to crash through it.

"Did anyone else notice the moss?" Holmes said as he carried a large, heavy barrel in front of the door. "It was growing all over them."

"The moss?" said Aurelia.

"The moss!" said the Doctor, and he took off running.

"Doctor? Doctor!" Holmes called. He swore colorfully and took off after him. "What about the moss?" he cried as he followed him through the narrow pathway created between piles of lumber.

"I'm stupid! I'm thick and stupid! I should have known the minute I saw," the Doctor said.

"If you'd be so kind as to save the self-deprecation for when we aren't in mortal peril," Holmes snapped. "What did you miss?"

"It shouldn't be far," said the Doctor, who was scanning the trees carefully. He turned off around a corner and gave a start. "There! No, stay back! Don't get too close!"

They both stopped. A large swatch of luminous green moss was growing along the trunk of one of the trees in the stack. It stunk of spoiled lettuce and was right by an open switchbox. It must have been the one that shorted out originally, the Doctor thought.

"Mind-controlling moss?" Holmes guessed.

"Technically, parasitic moss that takes over the nervous system after death of whatever living host it finds and uses it for locomotion— yes, okay, mind-controlling moss. Spot on, Mr. Holmes."

"Doctor…"

"It's called  _death moss_. Nice and ominous, don't you think? I've seen it before, but only once, and that was a very long time ago."

"Doctor."

"It's native to most of the galaxy, but it usually doesn't grow in such large colonies. It uses the dead hosts to reproduce, of course, by way of creating more dead hosts—"

" _Doctor!_ "

"—yes! What?"

"Where's Aurelia?"

The Doctor spun around, but she was nowhere to be seen. And then, abruptly, there was a scream.

Without another thought, they took off running towards the door they'd entered from, only to find Nolt, glowing green still, kneeling over Aurelia with both hands gripping her throat so tightly that the structural integrity of the skin and muscle and sinew had completely buckled under the force.

"Oh, Aurelia," the Doctor said, feeling his heart drop into his stomach. He shouldn't have run off. He should have made sure she was with them.

Nolt lifted his head and looked at them with shining black eyes. Holmes took a step back, holding out the pipe again.

"More running?" Holmes said, turning on a heel. But by the time the Doctor looked, he knew they were cornered. On one side, blocking the exit, was Nolt. On the other side was a swarm – fifty people at least – all of them with patches of glowing green moss, lumbering towards them.

"Okay," the Doctor said. "Think, think, think. Got to think. Sideways exits gone. Up and down exits?" There were no nearby ventilation shafts, no trapdoor, and the piles of lumber were too steep to climb.

"Do you have anything that generates light?" asked Holmes.

"Yes. Wait, why?"

"I have an idea. It will probably work."

"Probably?"

" _Very_  probably!"

Holmes held out his hand urgently. The Doctor frowned and rummaged past the portable television set, the walking stick from 16th century France, and the container of liquid nitrogen and handed Holmes a torch.

"It grows at the bottom of trees; it's not used to light. And there's no good reason to turn off the lights before they enter unless it harms them." He smacked the button on the side. A flood of white light fell on the lumbering hoard, which caused them to stagger back and shield their eyes.

" _Good!_ " the Doctor said, grinning wildly. "Very good!"

"We need to get out of here," Holmes said.

The Doctor boosted the strength of the torch with his screwdriver, though it sputtered and spat in protest at first. The illumination became three times brighter; enough to send Nolt staggering back far enough to allow them to escape.

They sprinted down the corridor together, with the Doctor guiding them in the general direction of the main bridge, where he knew he'd be able to do something very impressive to save their lives.

"You're good at this," the Doctor remarked as they ran.

"Good at running from hoards of undead?" Holmes asked, casting a glance over his shoulder to check if they were being followed. They were, but they were quite a way off.

"No, I mean  _this!_  You know! You go flying into adventure by the seat of your pants and  _not only_  do you still remain brilliant, but you come up with a clever way to give us the edge."

"You're talking like you do this often," Holmes said as they skidded around a corner.

"Sort of often, yes. Wait, here!"

They came to an abrupt stop outside a large double-sliding door. It didn't open when Holmes hit the button on the side, and the Doctor surrendered to using his screwdriver, which once again started sputtering and flickering.

"No, no, no!" the Doctor cried. "Why won't you work?"

"What is that thing?"

"It's a screwdriver."

"Oh, yes.  _Obviously_  it's a screwdriver. Never saw a screwdriver that didn't glow bright blue."

"It's a  _sonic_  screwdriver!" the Doctor said, wounded. "You'd been doing so well up till just now."

"Doctor, they're coming!"

The lumbering dead were stumbling round the corner. Holmes held out the pipe defensively just as the door, at long last, surrendered to the sonic screwdriver and slid open. They tumbled through right before it slammed shut again.

"Right!" the Doctor said, turning to the wide row of controls that gave access to most of the ship's primary functions. "Now's the part where I'm extremely brilliant and a little bit mad."

Holmes looked around the room. "What's the plan?"

The Doctor dove toward the console and began working rapidly, interspersing button-pushing and lever-flipping with zaps from his still-reluctant screwdriver. "Well, in a basic double-pronged fission engine ship like this, it's the easiest thing in the world to route the flow of created energy back through the original loop—"

" _The point, Doctor! Get to the point!_ "

"—yes, okay! Reroute power, big boom, zombies gone!" He was already halfway through the process, halting the safety protocols warning him not to do what he was doing.

Holmes looked around the room again, which had no other doors. "And you didn't stop to think of an exit strategy, did you?"

The auxiliary power supply had just enough juice to start a wailing siren.

"Warning, warning, warning," said the emergency system. "Evacuate immediately. Critical system failure."

"Oh," said the Doctor. "Right. An exit strategy. I knew I was forgetting something."

The zombies were beating at the door, causing it to dent and buckle.

"Right. This giant piece of glass – what is it?" Holmes asked, raising his voice to be heard over the thumping and groaning metal.

"Primary external sight screen," the Doctor answered.

_Crash!_

The end of the pipe broke through the dark tinted glass, and a beam of bright, white sunlight broke through the red, pulsing emergency lighting.

"We're almost twenty meters up!" the Doctor said as Holmes continued to break through the screen.

"Between the impossible and the improbable, I'll always take the improbable," Holmes answered.

Soon he'd broken a decent-sized hole in the screen, large enough to climb through onto a long slope of metal that served as the nose of the ship.

The Doctor followed, pretty sure this was the best day of his life.

"Geronimo!" the Doctor said as he leapt off the edge of the ship and was sent flying forward as it exploded.

 

o :: o :: o

 

Sherlock Holmes was no longer wet. He was, however, limping slightly.

"That was fun!" the Doctor said. "That was fun, wasn't it?"

"Running from the mindless undead, watching an innocent woman die, blowing up an enormous spaceship," Holmes recounted as they walked side-by-side back up to the top of the hill. "It's not what I'd call fun in the strictest sense, but it was definitely an experience I will not soon forget."

The TARDIS was sitting right where it had been left. It was no longer smoking. In fact, it smelled rather like lemon, the Doctor thought, which means that it had redecorated. He loved it when it redecorated.

"There you are, beautiful!" he said, fishing the key out from his pocket. He pushed open the door and walked inside. "Oh, you sexy thing. Look at you."

Holmes stepped in behind him and looked around. The interface had changed from curving, willowy lines to hard geometric patterns across the floor and ceiling, and the whole room had a very subtle bronze glow. He watched as the Doctor ran giddily up to the console and began running diagnostics.

"What is it called?" Holmes asked, slowly approaching the edge of the console.

The Doctor looked up at him and smiled. "The TARDIS. Time and Relative Dimension in Space."

Holmes lifted a hand and dragged it appreciatively down the central core.

"Do you like it?" asked the Doctor.

"It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," was Holmes's reverent answer. It only succeeded in making the Doctor smile wider.

"So!" the Doctor said. "I can very easily plot a course back to earth, 1891, dropping you back off in London and letting you get on with your life, or." The word 'or' punctuated his sentence dramatically, like a tease.

"Or?" Holmes returned, one eyebrow lofted higher than the other.

"Or you can come with me."

"Come with you?"

"We're on a planet with glass mountains and mold zombies, and this was just an accident. An emergency landing that was completely random! Imagine where I can take you on purpose."

Holmes looked up at the core as it oscillated slowly, tempting him with the soft whine of the TARDIS engines.

"All of time and space," the Doctor said, leaning on the console next to where Holmes stood staring around the room. "Anything that ever happened or ever will, at your fingertips."

For a very long time, Holmes said nothing. The expression on his face spoke of unrestrained imagination: he was seeing all the places he could go, all the things he could see, everything he could learn.

"I have responsibilities," Holmes said.

"You're London's only consulting detective; of course you do."

"I have Watson," Holmes said.

"An excellent fellow and perfect accomplice."

"I have London," Holmes said.

The Doctor leaned forward. "And I have a time machine."

Holmes's mouth twitched into a smile, then so did the Doctor's.

"What are we waiting for?" Holmes asked.


	2. The Anthrofarm

When the Doctor came back out of the TARDIS wardrobe, he was wearing a tweed jacket, suspenders and a bowtie.

Holmes did not seem impressed.

"What's with the look?" the Doctor asked.

"A bowtie?"

"Yes. I wear a bowtie now. Bowties are cool. And look!" Out from behind his back he produced a dusty brown deerstalker cap. "I found your hat." He marched over to Holmes and patted it neatly onto his head, but he didn't seem as happy as the Doctor imagined.

"Doctor, this isn't my hat."

The Doctor looked crestfallen. "Isn't it?"

"No. I was wearing a cabby hat when I fell off Reichenbach." He plucked it back off his head and regarded it distastefully. "What is this, anyway, a deerstalker? It's a bit silly looking."

This would not do at all, the Doctor thought. Here he was travelling time and space with Sherlock Holmes, and he couldn't even get him to wear a deerstalker cap! Incensed, the Doctor pulled it onto his own head and smirked defiantly.

"Fine," he said, "then I'll wear it. Deerstalkers are also cool."

"You look absurd."

"Don't argue with the designated driver."

"Does it bother you at all, Doctor," Holmes said, "that with this ensemble you look almost identical to my childhood mathematics tutor?"

The Doctor took a few moments turn over the implications of such a thing. "Intelligent?" he hoped.

"Socially maladjusted," Holmes corrected.

He frowned. "Well, what do you know? You're in a cravat! No one wears cravats anymore."

"You  _promised_  me a metropolis," Holmes said pointedly, folding his arms over his chest. "I sat through sixteen different types of tweed jackets because you said you'd take me to a metropolis."

The Doctor clapped his hands together. "Ask and ye shall receive!" he said. "I know just the place."

They left the wardrobe in a brisk walk towards the console room. "New Syntarra! Population of twenty-seven billion, the capitol of Islonia. It's  _the_  metropolis. The  _metropolis_  of metropolises." The Doctor frowned because it didn't sound right on his tongue. "Metropolii? Metropolies?"

Holmes ignored the hunt for proper pluralization. "How far is it from earth?"

"Oh, roundabout thirty-six thousand light-years. It's the center of galactic commerce, culture, history! It's home to three thousand different species, all cohabitating in perfect harmony! Or, well,  _near_ -perfect harmony."

Holmes was watching in eager anticipation as the Doctor set coordinates. A moment later, the engines were oscillating.

"It's called the Star City because it generates so much light that it's visible up to ten light-years away!" the Doctor said as they were tossed about the console room. "There are buildings over three miles high!"

The TARDIS stilled and Holmes was the first one to hurry towards the door.

"It is the largest city in existence!" said the Doctor as they walked out onto an empty field full of grass.

The Doctor looked around frantically.

"Well  _done_ ," Holmes said derisively.

"This isn't right," the Doctor observed, a bit uselessly.

"Quite so. I am promised the metropolis of metropolises and I land in what could pass for southern Sussex." It could, too, the Doctor thinks. The tall, barley-like grass swayed in an easy breeze, and milky rags of twilight were strewn through a blue-black sky.

"Must have overshot," he mumbled, though he was pretty sure he'd gotten the coordinates right. "All right, not a problem. Back inside and we'll—"

Then the Doctor was hit in the back of a neck with a dart. Before Holmes could react properly, he was, too. The world went black for both of them.

 

o :: o :: o

 

The first thing the Doctor noticed was the overpowering scent of excrement. The next thing he noticed was that he was naked. It wasn't a very nice combination to wake up to.

He blinked a few times, slowly and deliberately, so his vision would stop swimming. He was in a wide room that appeared to be made of wood. Across from him along the wall were dozens of cubbyholes, and inside each one were anywhere from one two five sleeping people. Humans, almost certainly.

He'd been hit with a neurosuppressor – a fast-acting drug that quite literally switched off higher functioning for a short amount of time. He knew because he could still taste it in his mouth. It tasted like crusty catsup.

With a jolt of terror, he looked around for Holmes. Thankfully, he wasn't far – he was unconscious and slumped in the nearby corner. He was also just as naked as the Doctor.

Step one, the Doctor thought, find some clothes. Even after spending so much time with them and even falling in love with one, he still thought humans were kind of icky.

There wasn't much to work with, but the Doctor managed to fashion two toga-like pieces from the raggedy blankets in some of the cubbyholes. As he tied one to Holmes's unconscious frame, he couldn't help but notice the striking resemblance to Hippocrates. The Doctor had met him once. What a card.

With the clothes taken care of, he went to investigate the door. It was large and square and wooden and locked from the outside. As he was formulating a plan to string a rope up through the window about four meters up, he heard Holmes stir.

"Morning, Briar Rose," he said. "Sleep well?"

"Is the overwhelming scent of human waste causing the headache, or does it have an independent origin?" Holmes asked as he pressed a hand to his head.

"Couldn't tell you. It might be a combination of both."

Holmes slowly pulled himself to his feet.

"No neurological damage, and the wooziness should wear off soon," the Doctor informed him as he tested the structural integrity of the narrow wooden wall.

"I remember seeing you hit with a dart," Holmes volunteered slowly.

"Yes. We appear to have been captured."

"Right. And why am I in a toga?"

"Because togas are cool." Holmes groaned. "Also it's the best I could do on short notice."

Holmes's mind slowly began to clear, and he gave their surroundings a good once over. As he did so, a frown steadily grew along the line of his mouth.

"Make anything of it?" the Doctor asked.

"I have never seen anything more insidious in my life," Holmes answered, voice low.

The Doctor looked away from the wall and tried to see what Holmes saw, but his mind was so wrapped up in mechanical resonance and oscillation and structural integrity that all he saw was a wooden prison with some sleeping prisoners. "What? What is it?"

"The nature of this wretched tomb does not occur to you?"

"Bit preoccupied," the Doctor said. "What do you see?"

"Doctor, look around. We're in a chicken coop."

The enormity of the statement hit him like a wrecking back to the gut. "Oh," he said faintly.

"Where men are treated like anonymous, disposable livestock," Holmes continued, the anger rising in his voice. "Look here at these footmarks in the dust. They were made by a man at least six feet tall, but no such man is with us presently." He gestured to the cubbyholes full of sleeping people. "They are taken out, therefore. Regularly, by the wear on the hinge of the door. For what sickening purpose I dare not imagine."

"We weren't captured," the Doctor muttered, "we were hunted."

"We must escape and tear this horrid place down brick by brick."

The Doctor nodded shortly. "I'm working on finding the mechanical resonance of this building," he said, placing both palms flat on the door. "If we can replicate it with enough force we should be able to bring the wall down."

"What do you need?" Holmes asked.

"More manpower. See if you can wake any of the others up to help."

"At once," he said before heading over to the long row of cubbyholes. He selected one on the end, sleeping in which was a short but powerful-looking fellow with sandy hair that was badly tangled along with his beard. He was naked, dirty and rough on every conceivable edge. Holmes leant down and shook him gently. "Sir?"

The sandy-haired man roused at once, springing up so abruptly that he nearly hit his head on the top of the cubbyhole. Holmes made a placating gesture with his hands.

"Easy," Holmes soothed. "My name is Sherlock Holmes, and the man behind me is the Doctor. We're here to—"

But before he could finish the sentence, he was tackled to the ground with such strength that the wind was knocked out of him. The sandy-haired man then sank his teeth into Holmes's exposed shoulder.

"Augh!" Holmes cried. Regaining his bearings quickly, he used all his power to roll and kick simultaneously, flinging the man off him. "What the devil is going on?"

The wild-looking man scrambled back up to his feet and bared his crooked, bloody teeth. Holmes looked down at his throbbing shoulder only to see that it now had a large, jagged wound extending towards the collarbone.

By now, many of the others had risen from their slumber. Some of them were slipping cautiously out of the cubbyholes and circling round to watch.

"Holmes!" the Doctor said, hurrying over. "Are you all right? He  _bit_  you?"

"Obviously," Holmes replied through clenched teeth. "Any guesses regarding an explanation for this?"

"Working on some," answered the Doctor.

"I am, as well."

The sandy-haired man launched at Holmes a second time with a loud, inarticulate cry, but this time Holmes was ready. He caught the man's outstretched wrists and landed a neat but powerful kick to his chest. As the wild man went staggering backward, Holmes finished it off with a dropkick to the jaw.

He collapsed like a sack of bricks against the far wall, unconscious and almost certainly with a dislocated mandible. Holmes righted his makeshift toga.

"This is all very bizarre," Holmes said. "What's going on?"

"Are you sure you're all right?" the Doctor asked, nodding to Holmes's injured shoulder.

"A trifling wound," he returned.

"Not if it gets infected."

"With all the respect in the world, Doctor, I think we have more pressing issues."

They were being encircled again, this time by women. They were all of them just as naked as the sandy-haired man, and looking amongst each other with expressions that spoke of confusion and surprise.

"Does anyone know why he attacked him?" asked the Doctor of the crowd, who at the very least didn't seem as violent.

No one answered. In fact, no one said anything.

"Can you understand me?" the Doctor tried again.

"Any chance the TARDIS's telepathic field is broken?" Holmes asked lowly.

"No, I'd know if that were the case. Don't be scared," he said, once again addressing the circled crowd, "we don't want to hurt you."

"Except for him," Holmes said with a disdainful look to the unconscious man by the wall. "I still have the urge to hurt him."

"You aren't helping, Holmes."

"He  _bit me_."

"They're all clearly under the effects of some sort of drug or remote brainwave inceptor; have some understanding."

As they argued, a lone female came forward. She was tall and buxom, hair tangled and nails dirty, and she was staring at Holmes with a very peculiar expression.

She grunted at Holmes. Holmes looked back at her in confusion.

"What's she doing?" Holmes asked uneasily. The sight of her seemed to almost nauseate him, the Doctor observed.

"Not sure," he admitted.

The woman came closer still and grunted at him again. Holmes took a half-step back. Then she turned around and—

"Oh,  _dear Lord_."

"Well, that answers that question!" the Doctor said, his voice about half an octave higher than he remembered it being. "She's, ah…  _presenting_  herself to you."

"Make her stop," Holmes said, voice strained.

The woman looked over her shoulder at Holmes in confusion. A number of other females stepped hesitantly forward.

"No, no, no!" Holmes said, holding up both hands. "None of that! Not interested! Thank you, anyway, but  _no!_ "

"Okay!" the Doctor began, clapping his hands together, "whatever they're under the effects of, it's clearly very powerful and reverting them to basic animal instincts. You know, feed, fight and—"

"— _yes, Doctor, I know._ "

"Good, yes. Any number of things can cause that, none of which can be addressed in our present location. So it's time for a more definitive exit strategy."

And then Sherlock Holmes was punched in the head.

The sandy-haired man had roused, it seemed, and gone for a second attack. Holmes toppled against the Doctor, who barely managed to keep him from collapsing. The crowd around them was making strange wailing noises.

"I have an idea!" the Doctor said.

"I have a concussion," Holmes slurred.

The Doctor grabbed him by both shoulders and steered him towards the corner. The sandy-haired man followed, teeth bared and ready to attack, but slow from the pain of a dislocated jaw.

"Try to get him to punch through this corner here," the Doctor said, pointing. "It's the structural weak point of this building, and a strong enough force should ruin the integrity of the whole wall."

"Everything's a little bit blurry," said Holmes with the deliberateness of a man about to pass out.

"Duck!" the Doctor cried, and Holmes ducked. The attacker's hand sailed over Holmes and crashed through the wall. Wood splintered outward and the entire building groaned in protest. The wild, sandy-haired man toppled forward and spent a while trying to extricate his hand from between two large splinters of wood.

Holmes, in what was most assuredly a herculean effort of concentrated will, landed the heel of his foot on the back of the man's head. The sandy-haired attacker collapsed on the floor and lie motionless, but just to be sure, Holmes prodded him in the back with the same foot that knocked him out.

"And  _stay down_  this time, y'bloody lout!" Holmes railed as he swayed treacherously from side to side.

"Are you quite all right, Holmes?" the Doctor asked. "You look a bit flushed."

Holmes blinked at him wordlessly.

"Yeah, your pupils are nonreactive. You've got a concussion, all right. You're about to lose consciousness, aren't you?"

He hit the floor with all the tenacity of a wet noodle.

"Right," said the Doctor. "Okay."

No screwdriver, no Holmes, no clothes, and no earthly idea what was going on. The Doctor considered his options for a while, before his train of thought was derailed by the opening of the door.

Hovering, silhouetted against bright white light from beyond, was what the Doctor reckoned to be some sort of repair droid. It was spherical and silver, with a red sensory strip running horizontally across the front. Two grasping apparatuses clicked and clinked as it scanned the room.

The Doctor looked back at the others. They were moving away, but showed no immediate indications of fear.

When he looked back at Holmes, he was being picked up, along with the sandy-haired man, each in one long, metal claw.

"No," the Doctor said. "No! Let them go!"

He lunged for the droid, but it was already floating back out the door, which was half-closed by the time the Doctor got to it.

"Holmes!" he called. " _Holmes!_ "

 

o :: o :: o

 

"TREATMENT COMPLETE."

He opened his eyes. The pain in his head had dulled significantly, though the fluorescent white lighting did not help the subtle throb between his temples that still remained. As his eyes came back into focus, he took stock of his surroundings.

He was in some sort of a medical bay – he'd been around Watson long enough to be able to identify the telltale signs of a hospital from a mile away – but other than that, he had no data. It was wide and white, with empty observation slabs down the length of the room.

His hands and ankles were strapped down. Frantically, he pulled at them to test their strength.

"BEGIN SCAN."

He looked over to his right. There was the sandy-haired man who'd attacked him, his dislocated jaw hanging unflatteringly to one side. An immense metal sphere was hovering over him, pulling a red line of light slowly down the length of his body.

His mind spun. First priority: get free. He was no good to anyone when he was bound. The straps were made from some kind of leather, he noticed, and were therefore not beyond his skills of escapology. He struggled with the straps for several agonizingly long moments, willing his thumb to bend into the cleft of his palm.

"SCAN COMPLETE."

The metal sphere hummed for a while, its internal mechanics buzzing. Holmes managed to pull his right hand free and used it to work on his left hand.

"DIAGNOSIS: SEVERE FRACTURE AND DISLOCATION OF MANDIBLE."

A few tugs on the leather strap and both hands were free. He went to work on his feet.

"TREATMENT OPTIONS: NONE."

Holmes looked up with a jerk. He had a very bad feeling about this.

"He's fine," Holmes said as he worked his left foot free, even though he was pretty sure the metal monstrosity couldn't hear him, "just set the jaw and let it heal."

"BEGIN PROCESSING."

And with that, a massive silver scythe whipped out from the side of the metal sphere and neatly severed his head from his body. Holmes was caught in a spray of dark, arterial blood.

"No!  _No!_ "

Holmes thrashed out of the last of his bonds and fell to the floor. His makeshift toga was splattered red.

"He would have been fine!" Holmes screamed, but no one could hear him. "He would have been fine! You didn't have to kill him!"

The metal sphere used its claws to undo the leather straps and pick up his limp, beheaded body. It buzzed off into the air and out of sight.

Holmes looked down at the severed head, which had rolled by his feet, and fought off a wave of nausea. He'd seen worse, of course, but never so directly. Never so callously.

He had to find the Doctor. He had to stop this.

He pried off a metal railing from a nearby observation slab and held it in both hands like a sword. It weighed heavily in his grasp, firm and cold as revenge.

 

o :: o :: o

 

The Doctor now had larger concerns than the skittish, silent masses in the wooden building. By the time he broke the crack of an opening into a hole large enough for him to pass through, he was ready to leave them behind. If they discovered the escape, fine. If they were too simple to understand the concept of escape, fine.

He'd brought him here, and he wouldn't let him die here. Finding Holmes was his first priority.

Outside the wooden prison were a thousand, thousand more, stretching to infinity in every direction. Above, more metal droids thrummed as they made careful, precise patrols. Even further up was a ceiling, giving the impression that he was in some enormous warehouse. It was lit by sunlight that filtered in through slots on the roof.

The Doctor walked. He was following the vague, distant sounds of gears. He walked and walked and walked – the sounds approached like an asymptote, always nearing but never reaching.

Only after the better part of an hour did he at long last find what he was looking for. An enormous archway came into view beyond a final row of, as Holmes had described, chicken coops. The sound of gears and grinding metal was almost deafening.

He could only describe it as some kind of factory: an immense maze of zigzagging metal treadmills between massive machines that groaned and hissed. The Doctor watched as a chunk of raw meat moved past him on one of the belts.

The purpose of the place suddenly became sickeningly apparent.

The lights surged suddenly, and all the machinery came to a loud, grinding halt. He took off in a sprint deeper into the metal jungle, knowing that only one thing could stop  _everything_ , and if there was any logic in the design, that one thing shouldn't be terribly far.

"Holmes!"

He was standing over a large central column. What looked like the railing of a hospital bed was jammed into it, still sparking. Holmes turned, standing in his black frock, waistcoat and loose cravat.

"Doctor," he said. "I thought that might get your attention."

The Doctor grabbed him and for how skinny Holmes was, it felt like he was hugging a length of rope. A length of emotionally awkward rope that wasn't used to physical affection.

"You're okay!" he said, pulling back. "Sorry about the whole separation thing. What happened?"

Holmes tossed him his sonic screwdriver, his tweed jacket, trousers, and bowtie.

"Blimey!" the Doctor said. "You  _have_  been busy."

"I've discerned the purpose of this building," Holmes said grimly.

"Yeah, so have I. You were able to find the central power transit on your own?"

"All roads lead to Rome," was Holmes's vague answer, accompanied by a shrug. "One does not need to know much about magnetics or electrics to know that the large box with hundreds of connections and a warning sign is most likely important."

The Doctor couldn't help but grin. "Brilliant," he said.

"We have to shut this place down," Holmes said urgently. "One of the great metal spheres—"

"—repair droids, I saw one—"

"—killed the man that attacked me when it decided there was no treatment for a broken jaw. Then his body was tossed in here to be 'processed'."

"But what I can't figure out is how they're suppressing the others," said the Doctor as he looked back in the general direction of the warehouse full of chicken coops. "If it was a biometric field, it would certainly be affecting you, if not me. And if it were a poison, it should have settled into our systems ages ago."

Holmes frowned. "What are you suggesting?"

"Don't know yet."

"Oy!"

They both turned. Standing several meters away was one of the more immense creatures that the Doctor had seen in his lifetime. Bipedal but covered in thick, short hair, the creature stood on two cloven hooves and had enormous black eyes set on the front of a round face. It had a lab coat and a nametag that said "JEFF – TECH SPECIALIST – ANTHROFARM".

"What the hell is this?" demanded Jeff the furry giant in a lab coat. "How'd you get out? What'd you do to th'bloody power transit?"

"Good Lord," said Holmes.

Jeff the furry giant in a lab coat nearly fell back from astonishment. Holmes and the Doctor could not have been any taller than its knee – or at least what served as its knee – and the vibrations from Jeff's backpedaling shook the ground under them.

"It talks!" Jeff said.

The Doctor decided that if he was going to be squished to death by a giant furry person in a lab coat, he was going to do so with proper clothes. As he pulled on his trousers, shirt and jacket, Jeff the furry giant reached for what looked like a radio on its hip.

"Security," Jeff began, "I have—"

But the Doctor turned his sonic screwdriver on the radio before he could finish his sentence.

"Sorry," the Doctor said, "I'm afraid dealing with just one of you will be quite trouble enough."

"What are you doing to them?" Holmes demanded, stepping forward and narrowing his eyes.

Jeff's obvious terror was made all the more amusing by the fact that at any moment he could easily kill either one of them just by stepping on them.

"How are you talking?" Jeff asked, still holding the broken radio. "How is that possible?"

" _Answer me!_ " Holmes barked. "What are you doing to everyone in there?" He pointed towards the room from whence the Doctor had come.

Jeff looked back in the direction Holmes had pointed. "What, the anthros?" he asked. "How do you mean?"

"You're controlling them somehow – subduing them. What was it? Some sort of chemical compound that keeps them placid so they don't mind being slaughtered and eaten?"

But the pieces were falling into place and realization slowly dawned. "Holmes…" began the Doctor, softly.

"How dare you herd them like livestock!" he said. "How many do you kill every day?"

"Holmes."

"These are free-thinking, independent—"

" _Holmes_." The Doctor urgently grasped his shoulder. Tears were rimming in Holmes's eyes, because he understood it, too.

"They can't be," Holmes said, but it sounded more like a prayer than an inference.

"They  _are_  just livestock," the Doctor said softly, looking back up at Jeff. "Aren't they? These anthros. They're bred for slaughter."

"The… the anthros are just simple beasts," Jeff said, back in familiar territory. "They're the primary source of food for three nations."

Holmes looked down, gripping tightly at his cravat.

"Those people…" he said hoarsely.

"Try not to think of them as people," the Doctor said softly, his hand remaining a comforting presence on Holmes's shoulder. "It will only make it hurt worse."

"They could be like us," Holmes said, almost pleadingly. "I'm sure with education, with instruction—"

"Holmes…"

"They're being  _killed_ , Doctor—"

"I know."

The Doctor didn't want to be here another minute. There was nothing they could do but hurt. He looked up at the furry behemoth that was Jeff-in-a-lab-coat and frowned.

"Do exactly as I tell you or this whole building goes down," the Doctor said somberly.

 

o :: o :: o

 

The TARDIS was quiet, as if it could sense their distress. The Doctor circled the console slowly and deliberately, needlessly flipping switches and adjusting dials. Holmes sat silently on the railing. Every now and then the Doctor would hazard a look up at him. He hadn't said a word since they'd left the anthrofarm, and the Doctor wasn't sure if he had grounds to be distressed yet.

"I don't get emotional about very many things," Holmes said after a while, sounding almost apologetic.

The Doctor wasn't sure what to say to that, so he said nothing. They fell into another lapse of silence. The TARDIS engines oscillated once.

"If Watson were here…"

Holmes trailed off, looking listlessly towards the doors. He seemed almost homesick, the Doctor realized, and why shouldn't he be?

"He'd know what to say," Holmes finished eventually, his voice scarcely above a whisper.

The Doctor began to fuss with the console more vigorously. "Well, then," he said, "there's nothing to it, is there? Let's go find him!"

Holmes looked up. "What? Take him with us?"

"Sure! Why not? Without him, it's only half the package, innit?" The Doctor grinned wolfishly at him, and was relieved to see a hesitant smile in return. "What is Holmes without his Watson? Johnson without his Boswell? Beavis without his Butthead?"

"Beavis without… what?"

"Nothing, never mind!" He cranked the hand lever and the engines began to whine. "The point is he'd make a fine addition to the TARDIS and I simply refuse to go another minute without him. To London!"

Holmes sprang off the railing, bracing his hands on the edge of the console. His gray eyes shone with gratitude as they rocketed off home.


	3. The Dorset Street Swarm

London had smelled more or less the same since the thirteenth century: smoggy, dirty and sweaty. It really didn't ever stop smelling that way, even when it was a part of a massive interstellar starship in the 3900s. The Doctor likes to think of it as a universal constant.

Holmes is the first to pull open the TARDIS door and he takes in a deep breath of the acrid air. "Hello, London, my old friend," he says.

The Doctor noses out behind him. "Roundabout ten days have passed since you fell off Reichenbach," he said as he shut and locked the door. "And unless I'm much mistaken, we're right at the end of Baker Street."

"We are, indeed," Holmes agreed, stuffing his hands into his pockets and taking off in a leisurely walk southward. "You know, I never asked – what exactly  _is_  a police public call box?"

Looking back briefly over his shoulder, the Doctor said, "Oh, it's… well, never mind. You'll get them soon enough."

"So you stole the design from earth?"

"I wouldn't say  _stole_ —"

"You seem to have a tendency of stealing humans, why not human ideas?"

The Doctor blinked owlishly at him. "I stole you?"

"I think that's an entirely apt descriptor, yes," he answered. "I had a perfectly respectable business until you showed up. Now I'm travelling through time and space with a madman in a police public call box."

He took a moment to consider it, and then decided that he was perfectly fine with having stolen Holmes. At the very least, he didn't seem to mind having been stolen.

"And don't think I haven't noticed the signs of the other humans you've stolen, the majority of them female. Sly dog."

The Doctor coughed and changed the subject. "And there it is! 221B Baker Street, the one and only! I'll admit, I've got chills."

Holmes lofted an eyebrow as he fished his keys from his pocket. "That Watson's little narratives become so popular is simultaneously amusing and unnerving."

"Oh, they live forever!" the Doctor assured him as they headed into the foyer. "There are people in the year six million who are still reading about you two."

"Watson!" Holmes called, loping up the stairs. "I'm back!"

When they entered the sitting room, they were both hit with a stiflingly thick fog of cigarette smoke. The Doctor fanned the air and Holmes's face was creased with a frown.

"Watson?" he asked again, approaching the huddle of furniture by the hearth. "Is that…?"

The Doctor watched from the doorway as Watson rose from his armchair and swayed precariously in his spot. He looked exactly as the Doctor pictured him – tall, strongly built, sandy-haired and with a moustache. The only characteristics that seemed off were his bloodshot eyes and the dark circles underlining them.

"Holmes?" Watson managed to say. His voice was hoarse.

"Watson, are you… you're  _drunk_."

It took a moment for the Doctor to realize it, but he was. Knock-down, drag-out drunk.

"Is it really you?" Watson stumbled forward, tripped over the coffee table, and collapsed against Holmes, who managed to catch him by the shoulders. "Is it?"

"Yes, of course it's me!" Holmes said, aghast at the state of him. "What on earth is wrong with you?"

Watson gripped the back of the sofa and used it to pull himself upright. He squinted at Holmes as if trying to confirm every detail of his face.

Then he reeled back a fist and punched Holmes in the nose.

Holmes fell back several steps and gripped at it to stem the bleeding.

"Watson!"

"Where the  _hell_  have you been!"

"Twice in the same day!" Holmes said as he pulled his handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket and used it to grip the bridge of his nose.

"One letter, Holmes! One stupid letter is all it would have taken! I thought you were  _dead!_  I saw you fall off Reichenbach and they dragged the river and they couldn't find your body or the body of that damnable Moriarty!"

Watson was very loud and almost completely incoherent. Holmes tried continuously to cut him off, but Watson went on shouting, undaunted.

"For months I talked myself into thinking maybe you were still alive! I kept this flat in order, I made sure none of your bank accounts were closed, I—"

"For  _months?_ " Holmes repeated. "How long has it been?"

" _Two years!_ "

Holmes rounded on the Doctor, and the Doctor suddenly felt very small.

"Whoops," he managed.

"It's been two years, Holmes! I refused to admit that you were dead! And then Mary… oh, poor, sweet Mary…"

Watson collapsed onto his knees and sobbed into his hands. Holmes, who was feeling fury, alarm, worry and exhaustion all at once, knelt down in front of him.

"Losing both of you was too much!" Watson said, gripping Holmes by the lapels of his greatcoat. "It was too much!"

"Watson… oh, my dear, sweet Watson," Holmes said. "Not a moment more of this. Come along. A good night's rest is what you need."

Holmes with his bloody nose and Watson in his drunken haze walked out of the sitting room to put the latter to bed. The Doctor decided it was best not to follow. He flipped through a few of Holmes's monographs on cigarette ash and was about to nose into his journal on the chemical properties of various poisons when he was hit in the back of the head with a book.

"Ow!"

"Two years, Doctor?  _Two years?_ " It was Holmes, wielding a hardback almanac.

"I'm sorry!"

"Watson's a wreck!" Holmes said, pointing accusatorily at the door out of the sitting room. "Going by the bottles in the kitchen, he's been drinking like a fish for the past four months at least!"

"I'm  _sorry!_  It's a Type 40 TARDIS, I'm running her in!"

Holmes flung himself dramatically onto the settee. He gripped the bridge of his nose with his handkerchief again and tilted his head back. He did not look placated by the Doctor's excuse.

The Doctor watched him, frowning. "Is he going to be okay?" he asked, hesitantly.

"You're the time traveller," Holmes said. "You tell me."

He shook his head. "Time is fluid," he responded. "I've got no more idea than you. Less, even. You're his friend, not me."

The Doctor sat down next to him and they lapsed into silence.

"I can't believe he punched me," Holmes mumbled.

 

o :: o :: o

 

When Watson woke up, the first thing he saw was Holmes.

He was sleeping lightly, curled up in the armchair on the other side of his room. His pipe was in one hand, dangling in his gently curled fingers, and the old mouse-grey dressing gown that Watson had refused to throw away was pulled tightly around him. The scene was so familiar, yet so terribly, achingly distant. The sight of it made Watson's heart jump in his chest.

Even the pounding headache seemed trivial in comparison.

Holmes was  _back_.

He pushed off the comforter and sheets and slipped out of bed. Holmes, as light a sleeper as he'd ever been, roused quickly. By the time he'd opened his eyes, Watson was standing in front of him.

"Holmes," he rasped.

Wordlessly, Holmes rose from the armchair and pulled him into an embrace.

Blinded with tears, Watson returned it. "Holmes," he repeated, voice breaking, "you're alive."

"I would never be so thoughtless as to leave you forever," Holmes said gently. "I'm sorry, my friend. I'm so very, very sorry. Please know that this long absence was never my intention."

"But where were you?" Watson asked, pulling away to look him in the eye. "Where did you go those long years?"

For a moment, Holmes seemed reticent. His eyes trailed downward.

"How's your headache, Watson?" he inquired slowly.

Watson frowned. "I've had better mornings, but so too have I had worse. Why?"

"Because the answer to your question might exacerbate the pain."

"I'm afraid I don't follow."

"I'll have Mrs. Hudson bring you up a hearty breakfast. Meet me at the northern end of Baker Street once you're feeling fit."

"But Holmes," Watson cried, "surely you owe me an explanation!"

"And you will receive one, my dear fellow. All in good time. Get dressed."

Before he could raise further protestations, Holmes was out the door. Watson felt that familiar combination of anticipation and adrenaline that always came when Holmes so brusquely tempted him with adventure.

After so long without, it felt incredible.

 

o :: o :: o

 

The Doctor looked up from the console as he heard Holmes enter.

"How is he?" he asked.

"Worse for wear," Holmes answered with a sigh. "I told him to have a large breakfast, but I doubt he will acquiesce. His curiosity always did have the best of him."

The Doctor grinned and flipped the zigzag plotter. Holmes collapsed in the chair.

"Do you actually sleep?" Holmes wondered aloud as he watched the Doctor circle the console.

"Course I do."

"When?"

"Once a week for about eighteen hours."

Holmes's lips pursed. "I stopped off at the baker."

"Ooh, so that's the smell," the Doctor said, abandoning the console and nosing over to Holmes's side. "Gimme."

They sat in silence for a while, splitting a muffin as well as the TARDIS chair. It wasn't long before the screen flashed to life; the external camera mounted on top was focused on Watson, in a long black coat and bowler, looking around the street in confusion. Holmes finished off his half of the pastry.

"I think you'd better handle it," the Doctor said. "He'd be more amenable to hearing it from you."

"Obviously," Holmes returned as he rose and headed back towards the door. He brushed off the last of the crumbs before he opened the door and stepped outside.

"Watson."

He turned, and a relieved smile crossed his face. "Holmes," he replied. "For a few dreadful moments, I thought I'd lost you again… what on earth is that?"

Holmes pulled the door shut behind him and leaned against it. "This is where I've been for the past two years."

Watson squinted slightly at the doors, at the tall sides and narrow roof.

"You locked yourself in a box?" he asked slowly.

Holmes smiled. "No, dear Watson, not quite. What felt like years to you was mere days for me. I have been to places beyond your imagination – beyond, even, my own. The things I've seen have changed my most fundamentally held beliefs, but for the better. Watson…"

He stepped forward and gripped his shoulders tightly, reassuringly.

"I have travelled," he said, "through—"

Abruptly, there was a scream. At once they both looked to the left; it was coming from the river just beyond the end of Baker Street.

"What was that?" Watson asked as he searched for the source of the noise.

"A woman between 200 and 400 feet away. Unless I'm much mistaken it was coming from the bridge across Regent's Park Lake."

The Doctor poked his head out the door. "Did you hear that?"

"Yes," Holmes said.

"Who's he?" demanded Watson, clearly not recalling him from the other night. Understandable, Holmes thought, since he had been drunk.

"Ah, yes. Watson, this is the Doctor. Doctor, this is John Watson."

"Doctor who?" Watson asked.

"Just the Doctor. Lovely to meet you!" The Doctor grabbed his hand and shook vigorously. "Wish we had more time, but I think we should follow the scream—"

Holmes was already sprinting across the street towards the bridge, ducking and diving between horses and hansoms. "Come along, Watson!" he called as he ran. "The game's afoot!"

The smile that appeared on Watson's face was wide enough to split his face. He took off after Holmes across the street. The Doctor followed.

When Watson caught up, he was on the far end of the bridge. He became aware of three things, in the following order:

One, there was a young woman in a blue dress who was sobbing frantically.

Two, a crowd of spectators was slowly beginning to form.

Three, there was a dead, mutilated body by the riverbank.

Holmes was already skidding down the edge of the water to get a better look at the body. Watson turned his attention to the young woman.

"Madam," he said, placing a hand gently on her shoulder, "what happened?"

"I just— just found him!" she cried, before throwing herself at him and sobbing into his shoulder. Something about his face, Watson thought, seemed to draw distraught women to him like moths to flame. "My sweet Adrian! He said he would be back in an hour!"

"Where was he going?" asked Watson, knowing what Holmes would want him to ask.

But she was too distraught to answer. As she sobbed frantically into his shoulder, the Doctor skidded to a halt in front of them, having finally caught up.

"Where's Holmes?"

Watson nodded to the riverbank, and the Doctor slid down the decline towards the edge of the water, throwing himself down next to him.

"This is brilliant," the Doctor said. "Holmes and Watson on a case!"

Holmes was holding up a small piece of what looked like cartilage. It was smeared with blood, but then, most everything in a five-yard radius had traces of blood from the gutted man lying just to the side of the bridge.

The Doctor looked at the tooth-size thing. "It's an egg sac," he said.

"I've already deduced that," Holmes replied. "Too fresh of a body for it to be from anything terrestrial. Thoughts?"

The Doctor plucked it from between his fingertips and studied it carefully. Then he sniffed it. "Silicon-based," he said under his breath before he produced his screwdriver from his pocket to test the resonance and get a quick nucleotide scan. "Hard to say at this juncture what species it is. The TARDIS could identify it."

"The body does not help you narrow it down?"

The Doctor looked down at it. His entire abdomen was a red mess of viscera and bone, but he'd seen worse.

"You know my methods," Holmes said lowly. "Apply them."

"Caucasoid male, mid-to-late thirties," the Doctor said, "trauma to the stomach and chest."

"But not typical sharp-force trauma," Holmes pointed out, gesturing to the sides of the body. "Look here at the way these strips of skin are positioned: they're falling away. This man was not gutted. Nothing was plunged into his body—"

"—rather something exploded outward," the Doctor finished. "Not a lot of species that can do that."

"We're looking for a wasp-like alien that lays eggs in living hosts. The eggs gestate and then, upon reaching maturity, claw their way out."

The Doctor squinted. He'd narrowed it down to seventeen possible species in this time period, eighty-two throughout all universal history.

A moment later, Watson came over. The shoulder of his greatcoat was stained with tears. "Holmes, I just spoke with the young man's fiancée. She says – oh, good Lord…"

Holmes rose to his full height. "Yes, Watson?"

Watson was looking at the bloodied mess of a man by the water. Medical expertise only did so much in hardening him to such horror. He righted himself and looked to Holmes. "She says that he was on his way to the doctor. He'd been having some sort of abdominal pain for the past few days."

Holmes looked at the Doctor expectantly.

"Twelve species," the Doctor replied, "seventy if we're forgetting the time flow."

Watson frowned. "Holmes, what on earth is he talking about?"

"Nothing on earth, I assure you," Holmes said. "I need to talk to the young woman; I need to see this gentleman's flat—"

But before he could finish his sentence, Watson proffered him with a card.  _Mr. Adrian Mason_ , it said,  _Accountant. 329 Fleet St_. Holmes was silent for a while, but then he smiled enormously.

"Sparkling form today, Watson! Separation has not dulled you in the slightest."

"I had to take it from the young woman's bag, but yes," Watson said. "Really, though, Holmes, what do you mean by not on earth—?"

"Division of labor!" Holmes cried, clapping his hands together. "Watson, are you familiar with a physician named James Llewellyn?"

Watson frowned but nodded. They were by no means intimate friends, but he'd read some of his papers on catatonia.

"I observe that he is this young man's doctor; the mud on the instep of his boots tells me as much. If you would be so kind as to find Dr. Llewellyn and learn every detail of his visit. I would go myself, but I feel you may command more respect and more cooperation, being a medical man, yourself."

Watson was not terribly happy with Holmes's evasiveness, but it brought him some comfort to know that two years had not changed him. What could he do but agree? "Of course, Holmes."

"Doctor!" he said, rounding next on the fellow in the bowtie, who was still kneeling by the corpse. "Take that sample back to the TARDIS and identify its origins."

"What in the name of  _God_  is a TARDIS—?" Watson began.

"At once!" the Doctor said, who seemed entirely too happy for such a somber situation.

"As for me, thanks to Watson's quick thinking and nimble fingers, I will be investigating the decedent's home for clues. In one hour's time, we will reconvene at Baker Street, agreed?"

The Doctor nodded and took off across the bridge. Holmes nodded and took off further into the park. Watson stood there and imagined punching Holmes again until he told him what the devil was going on.

 

o :: o :: o

 

Whitechapel flat, crushed between two larger buildings. Not a man of means.

Front door. Heavy drinker. Holmes ducked down and picked the lock, showing himself into the lobby.

Hat rack. No maid and not accustomed to visitors.

Sitting room covered in newspapers and periodicals. An intelligent man with interest in politics and culture but with little means to cultivate said interest.

No gas lines, older house.

Old, dirty Persian rug. Only recently fell onto hard times. Empty bookshelf. Sold books to help pay rent about six months ago. Likely boozed away most of the money.

Degree from Oxford in accounting. Moneyed background.

Stack of receipts on the bureau. Holmes looked over them. Lost his job two months ago, was just starting to get back on track financially.

Washroom. Clean. Gave up drinking recently.

Bedroom. Was once in the habit of employing prostitutes, but stopped recently, presumably when he met his fiancée.

That ought to do it, Holmes thought before he left the flat again.

 

o :: o :: o

 

James Llewellyn kept a practice not far from Baker Street, a little further into central London. They had never met, but when Watson sent up his card, a tall, slim gentleman with mahogany hair and smart blue eyes met him politely, if not effusively.

"Doctor Watson," he greeted. "I don't believe I've had the pleasure."

"No," he agreed as he shook his outstretched hand. "I'm here about one of your patients. His name is Adrian Mason."

"Ah, of course! Mr. Mason was just here a few hours ago. He was my first patient of the day." He gestured towards the sofa with one hand and they both sat down around a cheerfully glinting hearth.

"I'm afraid I have some bad news about him, Doctor Llewellyn," he said grimly as he leaned back against the sofa. "He was found dead this morning by my good friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes."

"Dead!"

"He has asked me to come and speak to you about the reason for his visit to you. It may be of vital importance."

"But how did he die?"

Watson hesitated. "We have reason to suspect foul play," he said carefully. It was an answer neither too revealing nor too vague. It had the added benefit of being true. The response seemed to shock Doctor Llewellyn, so Watson pressed again: "Why did he come to see you?"

Llewellyn's surprise evaporated for a moment, replaced with a look of offense. "As a doctor yourself, surely you understand the gravity of the Oath."

"I understand it all too well," Watson assured him, "but a man is dead and accommodations must be made to pursue justice. Mr. Holmes is of the firm belief that your answers may help us find the reason for his death."

He sat for a while in silence, studying Watson as if trying to discern his merit. Eventually, he sighed.

"He came to me with severe abdominal pain. He told me he'd been having it for over a fortnight."

"And what did your examinations find?"

"He had strange growths just beneath the abdominus rectus that I could feel when I palpated the area," Llewellyn answered. "They had mobility and did not feel like any cancerous growth I'd ever encountered."

Watson frowned thoughtfully. It was hard for him to form a medical opinion without himself examining the man. "Pupils, temperature, reflexes?"

"Normal, high, and normal," he answered. "It struck me at first as some sort of infection before I felt the growths." Llewellyn looked to the side almost remorsefully. "I can't believe he's dead… he had just gotten engaged."

"Holmes is on the case," Watson assured him. "When he is on a scent, all else falls to the wayside. He will bring this matter to a close, I assure you."

 

o :: o :: o

 

Holmes had a little bit further to travel and was second back at Baker Street. He came in to see Watson in the sitting room, poring over one of his old medical texts.

"Watson," he said easily. "Success?"

He looked up. "Nothing of the sort," Watson returned. "I have amassed the victim's list of symptoms and find myself even more in the dark than before."

"Indeed? And what were his symptoms?"

"Pain, fever, trembling, sweating and sporadic abdominal growths. Non-cancerous," he added, closing the book on his lap. "I've been looking over my old diagnostic books and have found nothing."

"Illuminating all the same," Holmes said as he dropped into his favorite armchair, which he noticed was covered in a fine layer of dust. "We await the Doctor now to provide the final link in the chain."

Watson leaned forward. "Holmes, will you now tell me who he is and where you have been? You have promised me an explanation!"

Holmes looked at him with a warm smile. "Ah, Watson," he said fondly, "my dearest Boswell. I think it won't be long now before all is revealed."

"At least tell me who this mysterious Doctor is."

He leaned back in his chair, letting his fingers form a triangle beneath his chin. He thought for a while about how he could sum him up.

"The Doctor," Holmes began, "is the most extraordinary man I've ever met. He tries so very hard to downplay his nature, but it always shines through. He is brilliant and terrifying and mad. He is as ancient as he is wise, and broken as he is whole. He is the very last of his kind, and he is the loneliest creature in the universe."

He hadn't told the Doctor that he knew. He didn't want to open old wounds by talking about it. It had been easy enough to read on his face, in the sad, subtle lines around his eyes and the way he would always hesitate as the TARDIS map opened on its default location: Gallifrey.

Watson was looking at him as if questioning his sanity.

"You don't understand," Holmes deduced, smiling. "It's all right. All will be clear to you eventually."

The front door clattered open. "Holmes!" It was the Doctor. "Holmes, are you in?"

"He has keys?" Watson asked, flabbergasted.

"He has a screwdriver."

"I ran a scan on the sac – it's bad news and we need to work quickly!"

Holmes sprang from his chair and met him halfway down the hallway. "What is it?" Holmes asked. "Where is it from?"

"It's from Tiraxxianni," he answered, "a jungle planet in the Seculoid Belt about thirty million light-years from here." Watson emerged slowly from the sitting room as the Doctor spoke. "The egg sac belongs to a species called the Syrax."

"The Syrax?" Watson said incredulously.

"How did they get here?" asked Holmes.

"They're a parasitic species. They probably hitched a ride on one of the other folks to invade you."

" _Invade?_ " Watson said.

"It's happened before?" Holmes asked.

"Oh, yes. Plenty of times. Usually, though, I've just been around to stop it."

"Where can we find them?"

"Holmes, you aren't actually believing this, are you?"

"That dead body? That was a hatched host. The Syrax inject their eggs into a living host, gestate for a while and then the mature children rip their way out." The Doctor was pacing back and forth frantically, rubbing his hair and trying to think.

"And a host would experience abdominal pain, fever, trembling and sweating as the eggs develop," Holmes said, looking to Watson with great significance. Watson blanched.

"Yes. The larvae eat through muscle tissue and non-vital organs to sustain themselves."

Watson sunk back against the wall, trying to digest the information. Holmes looked back to the Doctor.

"Where would they prefer to live?" he asked the Doctor.

"Somewhere dark and damp. They're used to living in rainforests, but with London…"

" _Hang on!_ " Watson cried. "You're talking about – about  _aliens in London_. Am I right? Extraterrestrial beings in the middle of England. Someone would have noticed!"

But the Doctor shook his head. "They might not. Syrax are insectoid. They'd look like… like giant flies. Well, not giant necessarily – just rather large. But they're venomous and carnivorous and they travel in swarms and are very bad news."

"In and around the Thames is what occurs to me in terms of dark and damp," Holmes said as he started to pace and rummaged through his coat for a cigarette. "But what worries me most is how they got infected in the first place. How many other people have a fever and abdominal pain and eggs in their gut?"

"Syrax tend to dwell in large communal nests, and do most of their hunting in swarms."

Holmes stopped walking. "But Watson's right," he said. "Under normal circumstances, someone would have noticed such large groups of insects – unless it was somewhere insects frequent."

The Doctor seemed to follow his logic closely. "A meat factory."

"There's one along the Thames – come on!"

 

o :: o :: o

 

As they took a cabby over, Holmes pored over a paper he'd bought from a crier making a round up Baker Street. The Doctor was sitting next to him, fussing with two small metal devices, one of which was making a strange humming sound and emitting a green light.

"Are either one of you going to fill me in?" Watson eventually asked, impatient.

The Doctor looked up briefly from his devices. Holmes did not even glance away from his paper.

"Come now, Watson," Holmes said, "I know you're smart enough to put it together."

"You cannot honestly expect me to believe—!" he began.

"Did you bring your stethoscope?" Holmes asked suddenly as he turned the page.

"Did I – what?"

"Your stethoscope."

"Yes, of course. But why…?"

"Doctor, if you would be so kind?"

The Doctor gave him a sideways look. "How'd you work it out?"

"I may have looked over a book on Gallifreyan anatomy while you were out," Holmes muttered idly. He turned the page again.

"Disappointing," the Doctor said with a small frown. "For a minute I thought you'd done something clever."

"The Doctor is an alien," Holmes said, at long last looking up from the agony column to regard Watson. "His home planet's name is Gallifrey. He has a binary vascular system; if you don't believe me, have a listen for yourself."

Watson looked between the two of them in astonishment.

"He looks human," Watson finally managed.

" _You_  look Time Lord," the Doctor corrected, the flashing green light causing the other metal device to chirp.

"Proof is what you wanted, and proof you shall receive. Go on, Watson." Holmes nodded towards his hat, where the stethoscope was tucked. "Have a listen."

He produced the small silver stethoscope, slowly and carefully, and let the buds slide into his ears. He leaned forward across the brougham and pressed the metal plate to the left side of his chest.

It was a strange noise. It was not the steady thumping that Watson was accustomed to hearing; instead it made more like a rushing sound. That alone made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. He slowly moved the plate to the other side of his chest.

The stethoscope nearly clattered to the floor.

"Good Lord," Watson breathed.

"If you think that's something, you should see my lungs," the Doctor said with a grin.

"I'd love to."

"Easy, Watson," Holmes said with a laugh. "Look at this." He held an article up to the Doctor, who read it with nothing more than a glance.

"Ah-ha-ha!" he said as he continued to fuss with the device in his hand. "Clever!"

Holmes then passed it to Watson, who had to read it more slowly.

"Deaths in Colchester Meat on Dorset Street?" he read the title.

"You were right, Watson," Holmes said with a smile. "They wouldn't go unnoticed, at least not completely. They were not eviscerated by the meat processing machinery, if I were to venture a guess."

"The Syrax have a hive-mind," the Doctor chimed in. "Destroy the hive, destroy the entire colony."

"Is that what that device is for?" Watson asked as he looked at it. It was small and rectangular, a tangle of wires and antennae sticking out every which way.

"This just detects the aerosolized venom that the Syrax excrete. It will let us know if we're close or not."

"Is the venom dangerous to humans?" Watson asked. "Or – well – to Time Lords?"

"Not in the sort of quantities we'll be encountering."

The device suddenly lit up a bright red and began to whirr faintly.

"Ah! See? It works!"

Holmes drew back the curtain on the window of the brougham. They were just crossing over the bridge across the Thames.

"We're nearly there. Here you are, Watson." Holmes reached into the large canvas bag he'd packed before they left, tossing him a lantern.

"What's this for?" Watson asked.

"How do you destroy a wasp's nest?" asked Holmes, his grey eyes twinkling with his grin.

The brougham rattled to a halt. Holmes and the Doctor clattered out and Watson paid the cabby.

The factory was a massive stone monolith peppered with dirty black windows. It loomed on the graying sky like a sinister mountain.

"Oh, she's going crazy," the Doctor said as he watched the device sputter and whirr. "Chances are we'll have the best luck in the basement. Come along, Holmes! Watson! By God, that's fun to say!"

They took off into the building. It was dark and appeared to be closed for the night. It smelled like blood and bile and raw meat, and all around a million flies buzzed. The factory floor was darkly lit and sent chills up Watson's spine.

"Try to breathe shallowly," the Doctor whispered. "They're attracted to carbon dioxide."

Slowly they descended down a flight of stairs off to the side. The buzzing steadily grew louder and louder until it nearly deafened them. It was dark as pitch and Watson struck a match to light the lamp, which illuminated scarcely anything in the oppressively black surroundings.

As they rounded the corner at the bottom of the steps, Watson took in a sharp breath. The Doctor clapped his hand over his mouth.

Watson had never heard anything so loud since the Battle of Maiwand. A massive black nest was built against the wall, held aloft with sticky tendrils attached to the ceiling. Buzzing around it was a massive swarm the likes of which Watson had never seen. Each insect was the size of a grape, with a set of fangs nearly half an inch long. They beat their wings so fast that it felt like a draught through the room.

"Be ready to throw the lantern, Watson," Holmes said, creeping slowly forward. From the same canvas bag, he produced a small metal canister full of what smelled like gasoline.

"Be careful," the Doctor said.

Ten feet from the slimy black nest, the swarm stopped its patterned circular movements and hovered in front of Holmes. The mass warped and bent, as if trying to look at him from every angle.

Holmes threw the canister into the nest. A splatter of gasoline filled the room with an acrid scent. The swarm descended.

" _Holmes!_ " Watson cried, rushing forward and knocking him to the ground. The lantern flew from his hand, broke, and lit the growing pool of gasoline on the floor.

" _Run!_ " The Doctor grabbed both of them by the back of the collars and pulled them towards the steps.

The swarm hissed and buzzed. The fire was not spreading rapidly enough. They ran up the steps, pursued hot at their heels by the mass of insects, their fangs glistening.

But when they made it to the factory floor, another swarm blocked the door. They all three of them stumbled backward, cornered.

The swarms began to circle, slowly, like vultures.

Watson felt Holmes grip at his lapel coat.

"Watson," Holmes said, "if we don't make it out of here—"

"—for God's sake, Holmes," Watson said. The swarms were swirling so close now that he could feel the angry buzz in his teeth.

"Listen to me!" he cried, wrenching him around. "If we don't make it out of here, I feel as if I need to tell you, that I have always—"

And then, a shriek. Not from one place, but from every place at once. The bugs retreated and moved like liquid shadow back down into the cellar. From their position they could see it slowly fill with smoke and fire.

"Out, out, out, out!" the Doctor cried, and they went tearing out of the building as it rapidly went up in flames.

 

o :: o :: o

 

With the disaster averted, they decided to walk back to Baker Street. The Doctor was several steps in front of them.

"Always what?" Watson asked. "Back there, you said that you had always… what?"

Holmes looked at him, sideways.

"Respected and valued you," he said easily.

Watson smiled, but he wasn't sure if he believed him.

"You know," Holmes continued, "the TARDIS – the Doctor's ship, that blue box you saw – it travels in time as well as space."

Watson reeled back in astonishment.

"That's why we're two years late. For me it has felt only like a few days."

After a moment, Watson laughed. "How immensely impolite of you, Holmes, to allow me to age while you avoid the sting of time."

Holmes smiled. "Then come with us."

Watson fell silent. A cabby rattled past.

"Please," Holmes added. "Travel with me. With the Doctor. Come with us through time and space. It took me only a few scarce days to realize just how lost I am without you alongside me."

"What do you do?" Watson asked. "In his time machine."

"Nothing so very different from what you and I did, back in the good old days. Just on a larger scale."

They came round the corner. The TARDIS was sitting where they had left it, and the Doctor was unlocking the door and pushing his way inside.

"It's a bit small for a time machine," Watson said with a playfully disparaging tone. "I doubt we will all three of us fit."

Holmes just smiled. As they approached it, he pushed the door open further.

"Go on," he said.

Watson looked to Holmes, and then walked inside.

Then he backpedaled out again, and put his hands against the sides. He walked around the outer perimeter in disbelief.

"But… but it's—!"

"—bigger on the inside," Holmes finished, still smiling.

"That's impossible!" Watson said.

"Not impossible," Holmes retorted, "just very unlikely."

Watson could not even muster the strength to chuckle. Eyes wide, he once more walked inside, slowly moving up the plank towards the console.

The Doctor was standing at the railing, grinning. "Time and Relative Dimension in Space," he said, gesturing towards the core. "What do you think?"

All he could do was stand, mouth open in astonishment. Holmes walked in behind him, pulling the door shut and shrugging off his coat.

"What would you say to a quick trip into the past, Doctor?" he said, tossing himself artlessly into the chair. "Just to acclimate dear Watson to the idea of time travel?"

"The past, hrm?" The Doctor flipped up a large lever and set the coordinates. "Yes, I think I could manage that."

Watson smiled, slowly and widely.


	4. Iesvs Nazarenvs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter may be offensive to those who are very religious. If you're easily offended by things which may contradict Biblical teachings, I'd advise you to skip to chapter five.

"The Mesozoic Era!" said the Doctor as they stepped out of the TARDIS into a busy marketplace.

Holmes emerged behind him, Watson last. Holmes looked around the market with nothing but amusement.

"It's as if you're actually getting worse at piloting your own ship," Holmes pointed out.

The Doctor spun around on a heel in confusion. "Why does this keep happening?" he wondered out loud, distressed and alarmed. "I set the coordinates for the Mesozoic Era, I swear!"

Watson stared out at his surroundings. The scene was a stretch of flat, brown dust, with shallow hills falling along the skyline. The market itself was crowded with people, most of them in simple linen clothing, puttering between stalls that sold different sorts of breads and vegetables. The buildings were squat, square and sandstone, lining the central street like stacking bricks.

Holmes saw his expression of wonderment and smiled. He came over and threw his arm around Watson's shoulder.

"Well, Watson, what do you think?"

"It's incredible!" he breathed. "Where are we? When are we?"

"With the Doctor's piloting skills, your guess is as good as mine."

"Oy!" The Doctor locked the TARDIS door and moved to Watson's other side. "Watch it."

"Answer the good man's question, Doctor," Holmes said with a playful smirk.

The Doctor looked around and sniffed the air. It had the vague smell of salt. "Somewhere not far from the Dead Sea," he said. "And going by the clothes, anywhere between seventeen hundred and twenty-one hundred years ago."

"We don't really blend in," Watson said, looking down at his waistcoat, watch chain and shiny black shoes.

"Confidence is nine-tenths of blending in, Watson," Holmes said with the smallest of winks. "Act like you're supposed to be here and people usually assume you are."

Watson looked back over his shoulder at the TARDIS. "And the giant, blue box?"

The Doctor waved his hand dismissively. "She's fine. Let's go exploring!"

"You did promise Watson dinosaurs," Holmes reminded him as they ambled easily into the marketplace.

"Oh, I assure you, I would not be so petty as to complain. This is incredible, wrong landing or no! We're standing – we're actually standing in a different time!"

The Doctor smiled. Holmes laughed and gave him a last thump on the back before tucking both his hands into his waistcoat pockets.

"Will we be able to communicate?" Watson asked the Doctor suddenly.

"Of course we will. The TARDIS translates everything."

The ground suddenly began to tremble faintly, but it quickly intensified into a deafening rumble. Holmes instinctively grabbed Watson's shoulder, and Watson Holmes's arm as pots fell off shelves and livestock went scrabbling out into the road.

Merchants hurried to brace their stands full of food, but none of them, the Doctor noticed, seemed entirely distressed. By their reactions, it seemed as if this was an annoyance that they were forced to put up with daily.

As quickly as it started, however, it stopped.

"An earthquake?" Watson guessed, looking to Holmes.

"Didn't feel like an earthquake," said the Doctor gravely. He sprinted across the street up to one of the merchants, a short fellow with a head of curly black hair and a long beard, selling what looked like yams. "Excuse me."

"Sir?" replied the merchant with an amiable smile.

"What was that? That big old rumbling just now."

He looked between the Doctor, Holmes and Watson with a good-natured smirk. "Not from around these parts, are you?"

"No, indeed," Watson laughed.

"It's coming from Sepphoris," the merchant said. "It happens every now and then. The Romans are building something as big as the sky."

"What kind of something?" the Doctor asked.

The merchant shrugged. "Couldn't tell you. Never been there, myself. You can go if you're so curious."

"How far is it?" Holmes asked.

"A few miles northeast," he answered, gesturing in the mentioned direction with one hand over his shoulder. "Just follow the road. Can't miss it."

"Right. Thank you. Come along, boys!"

" _Boys?_ " asked Holmes, offended, but the Doctor had already taken off in a jog. "I take some issue with that appellation, Doctor," he said as he hurried to catch up.

"What then?" asked the Doctor. "Men? Comrades? Compatriots?"

"Holmes works just fine for me."

"'Come along, Holmes and Watson?'" The Doctor scoffed. "No, no. Takes much too long to say. Face it, Holmes. You two are my boys."

Holmes sneered, looking between the other two. "Does that make you two my doctors?"

"And you two my geniuses," Watson finished with a laugh. "Well, it all works out very nicely, doesn't it?"

The Doctor was grinning wide enough to split his face. He put one arm around either of their shoulders as he kept the brisk pace towards Sepphoris. "See? We three were destined for each other! And I'll tell you something else – that was  _not_  an earthquake we felt just now."

"Wasn't it?" Watson asked.

"No, no. The frequency was all wrong." The Doctor rubbed his hands together. "It was made by some sort of engine, at a guess, with a high resonance."

"An engine?" Holmes repeated, with one eyebrow lofted inquiringly. "In the ancient Judea?"

"Yes, that was my reaction."

"Answer me something, Doctor," Holmes said. "It seems like you have a habit of landing us in situations with some immediate and present danger, usually alien in nature. Why is that?"

"Just lucky, I suppose," answered the Doctor.

"You'll hear no complaints from me," Watson volunteered.

"I should imagine not!" replied Holmes. "Immediate and present danger was one of the only reasons you allowed yourself to be involved with me."

"It wasn't your sparkling personality?" asked the Doctor, grinning crookedly. Watson laughed and Holmes was elbowed playfully in the ribs. "Come on, then. We can't be too far off from Sepphoris!"

"Pardon me."

They all three of them stopped, not far from a fork in the road. The man addressing them was on the other fork, about a hundred paces away, and was accompanied by another man. He was tall – taller than Watson, though perhaps not as tall as Holmes – with a head full of black curls, a beard and shining bronze skin. He was smiling.

"Yessir!" the Doctor greeted amiably. "How can we help you?"

"It seems I am more in the position to help you," he answered. "I could not help but hear that you were bound for Sepphoris, are you not?"

Holmes inclined his head. "We are, yes."

"Then you're bound in the wrong direction," he said with a gentle laugh. "That road you're on will take you to Besara, not Sepphoris."

The Doctor blinked widely at the wide, dusty road. "Oh," he said, "right."

"Matthew and I are on our way to Sepphoris," he said, gesturing toward his companion, a wiry fellow with short-cut hair and no beard. "We'd be happy to guide you there."

"Well, how very accommodating of you!" the Doctor said with a smile. He cut across the hundred paces between the two branching roads to join him. "Thank you, Rabbi."

He canted his head to one side, his face still warm but tempered with confusion. "Is it so obvious that I'm a rabbi?"

"It is if you know what you're looking for. So, Rabbi," the Doctor said, launching right out of formalities into the question that was written all over his eager face, "have you been feeling the earthquakes?"

"Oh, yes," he said as Holmes and Watson joined them on the dusty road to Sepphoris. "They are commonplace. Been happening since before I was born."

"Do you know what it is the Romans are building to cause them?" Holmes asked.

"Before his death, my father worked for the Romans in Sepphoris," said the rabbi as he adjusted the weight of the bag over his shoulder. "I only saw it a few times. It is an incredible piece of architecture, though I can't say I know its function."

"Incredible but tempered by the fact that it is built by Roman hands," the rabbi's friend Matthew added, bitterly. "I find it hard to appreciate anything they build."

The rabbi gave Matthew a pacifying gesture with one hand. "There, now, Matthew," he said gently, "we are all of us the children of God. Even the Romans."

"Wise words," Watson said with a smile.

"Anything strange surrounding the area?" the Doctor asked. "Odd noises, disappearances, things like that?"

"What strange questions you ask!" laughed the rabbi. "Where are you from, strangers? I've been a great many places in my lifetime, but I've never seen clothes quite like yours."

"We're from Barcelona," the Doctor answered without really thinking. "It's a very faraway land."

"It can't be that faraway," the rabbi countered. "Your Hebrew is flawless."

Holmes grinned. "Doesn't miss a trick, this one. What's your name, Rabbi?"

"I am called Joshua," he said with a polite inclination of his head. "But my friends call me Josh."

"Good to meet you, Josh," the Doctor said, shaking his hand. "You as well, Matthew."

They walked for a while in silence. The road to Sepphoris was long and unbearably hot, so hot that Watson shrugged off his coat and rolled up his sleeves. After serving in Afghanistan, he was well and truly used to high temperatures, but even so he was happy to sling his coat over one shoulder.

It wasn't for nearly ten minutes that something suddenly seemed to occur to Holmes.

"Wait," he said, "you said your name is Matthew?" He pointed to Matthew, who nodded. "And your name, Rabbi, is Joshua?"

"Yes," the rabbi replied, slowly.

"And Doctor, you said we weren't far from the Dead Sea, which means that we're – what, in Galilee?"

"Southern Galilee, yes," Matthew said.

"So… so, wait," Holmes said, tripping over his words. "You're – you are Rabbi Joshua of Galilee?"

The rabbi seemed to be confused by what appeared to him to be repetition.

"By any chance, were you born in Bethlehem?"

Watson nearly tripped over his own feet.

"Have we met before?" Joshua asked, sounding surprised.

" _Good Lord_ ," Watson cried, coming to a complete stop and staring at the rabbi in wonderment. "It can't be!"

"Yeshua bar Yosef, of Nazareth," Holmes said. "It really is you."

"Blimey!" the Doctor said, looking him over. By then, the band of five had stopped in the middle of the road. "It is him, isn't it? Right time period, right location, right get-up," he added, looking down at his sandals.

"Oh," Matthew said, brightening, "you've heard of his teachings?"

"I should say so," replied Watson vaguely.

"See, Josh?" Matthew continued as he turned to the rabbi. "You are making a difference. Your efforts to spread the good news are working! I told you that sermon on the hill was a good plan."

Holmes laughed deliriously.

"You have no idea," the Doctor said.

"So it really is true?" Watson asked as they continued walking. "You're the Son of God? The Christ and Messiah?" He'd always been a devout Anglican, of course, but seeing him in person was another matter entirely. He couldn't help but ask.

"I'm glad to be a Messiah to my people, if that's what they really need," he answered easily, "but I'm still not sure how this silly rumor about being the Son of God got started."

Watson blinked at him, mouth agape.

"What I mean to say," Josh continued, "is that we're  _all_  the children of God, like I said. We have in each of us a spark of the Divine. The Holy Ghost."

"By God, are you ever misinterpreted," Holmes marveled.

"Your mother doesn't help matters," Matthew chimed in, smirking at Josh. Then he turned to Holmes, Watson and the Doctor and explained, "She's a little touched in the head. Lovely woman, but always on about how she was visited by angels. Nearly got her stoned once or twice."

"Angels?" asked the Doctor.

"Angels?" repeated Watson.

"It's really not that big of a deal," Josh said with a small frown. "Look, let's not talk about it. There's Sepphoris just over the hill."

As they came up to the hill's crest, the skyline was suddenly dominated with shining white marble. It was a large city, not tall but wide, eclipsed by a massive stone building in the vague shape of a disc.

"By the way," Josh said, "I don't think we caught your names."

Holmes and Watson were staring down into Sepphoris with reverence. The Doctor answered for them: "He's Sherlock Holmes, he's John Watson, and I'm the Doctor."

"Oh, a healer!" Josh said, smiling. "Good! I have great respect for healers."

"It's mostly just a name for me," the Doctor replied, sniffing. "Watson's the real healer."

Holmes frowned at him. "You're not actually a doctor?" He sounded almost disappointed.

"Well, I mean, I  _am_ , just not – you know – of humans." He took off down the hill towards Sepphoris, leaving Josh and Matthew to look at each other in confusion.

"What's your business in Sepphoris?" Matthew asked as he jogged to keep up with the Doctor.

"Well, I'm  _very_  curious about those earthquakes you lot have been getting," the Doctor explained, "and I tend to be a little bit relentless when I'm curious."

"I'm rubbing off on you," Holmes remarked.

"Well, you should be careful," Matthew remarked. "Sepphoris is a Roman city, and they don't take too well to Jews."

"Are you Jews?" Josh asked curiously. "You're certainly clean enough, but you dress like neither Romans nor Jews."

They looked between each other for a while, as if trying to decide on the best answer.

"It's complicated," Holmes answered after a few moments. Brusquely trying to change the subject, he said, "What about you two? What's your business there?"

"Matthew sold our camel," Josh said, throwing what might have been a very subtle glare at him.

"I was drunk and lost it in a card game," he admitted sheepishly. "We need to get back to Capernaum, but it's a hard journey without a camel. Sepphoris is the best place to buy a new one."

They came down off the hill onto a street that, going by the sign, was known as Damascus Street. It was wide and busy, full of carts and pedestrians, all of them pushing their way through crowds or arguing.

As Matthew went to look at a camel tethered to a post and Joshua turned his back, the Doctor produced his screwdriver, giving his surroundings a quick scan.

"Anything?" Holmes asked.

"Something very wibbly," he answered. "Seems to be coming from that way." His screwdriver was pointing north, buzzing with more fervor.

Watson tapped Matthew on the shoulder. "What's that way?" he asked, pointing in the direction indicated.

Matthew glanced north before he answered: "Most notably the theatre. Why?"

"Right. Let's go there," said the Doctor with a nod.

Joshua peered between the three of them curiously. "You can't. It's a Roman theatre."

"Oh, I have a feeling they'll let us in. Thank you very much for the help, Je— err, Joshua."

Joshua and Matthew watched them take off down Damascus Street.

"Stay here and get a new camel," Josh said after a moment's pause. "And make sure it's not too skinny; we have to bring a lot back to Capernaum." With that, he started off after them.

"Wait!" Matthew called after him. "Why are you following them?"

Josh stopped and looked back. "They're either brilliant or mad," he said. "Either way, I don't want to miss it. Good luck, Matthew! I'll find you later!" He continued after them, sandals clopping in the dust.

By the time Josh caught up with them, they were already at the end of Damascus Street, staring at a massive, round marble structure. It was supported by a series of columns and had a shallow, domed roof plated with gold.

"Don't get me wrong," Josh could hear the Doctor say as they stopped to examine it, "it's lovely and all, but it doesn't really look  _Roman_."

"It looks like a very tawdry copy of a Roman building," Watson agreed.

The Doctor scanned his surroundings again with his screwdriver, and then flipped it out to examine the readings. "Survey says something  _very_  wibbly indeed. Maybe it  _looks_  like a very tawdry copy because it  _is_  a very tawdry copy, because I'll tell you what, it's definitely not a theatre." He squinted at the readout on his screwdriver and turned it upside-down.

"What is it, then?" Holmes asked.

"Haven't the foggiest." The Doctor snapped his screwdriver shut and tucked it into his pocket. "Let's find out, shall we?"

"You're going in?" Josh asked, causing all three of them to turn around. "It's very dangerous."

The Doctor smiled amiably. "That's part of the job description, Josh."

"If the Romans find out—" he began.

But they were already heading towards the large stone arch that served as an entrance, and the Doctor was flashing some form of identification to the guard at the front.

"Hello!" he greeted. "Mind if we just nip in?"

The guard squinted at the small square of paper enclosed in leather and gave a start. "Not at all, Your Excellency!" He snapped down into a deep bow. "By all means!"

"Brilliant, thanks! These three are with me." He shepherded them all inside.

" _Your Excellency?_ " Josh asked once they were out of earshot. "What did you show him? Let me see that." The Doctor handed it over as they crossed into an immense theatre-in-the-round, with leveled seating around a pit that held a set full of wooden flora. "This says you're the Grand Vizier to Herod's court!"

Holmes looked over his shoulder and frowned. "No, it doesn't. I don't see anything."

Watson looked over his other shoulder. "Yes, it does, Holmes. See? Just there.  _Herod's Grand Vizier of the Court, the Doctor_."

The Doctor snatched the paper away and tucked it into his coat. "It doesn't work on geniuses," he muttered. "Slightly psychic paper. Shows anyone anything I want. Well,  _mostly_  anyone."

"Psychic?" Josh asked, bewildered. "I've never heard this word before. Who are you?"

"Just here to help," the Doctor assured him as he scanned the theatre more closely with his steadily buzzing screwdriver. "Oh, yeah. We're getting close now."

"Close to what?" asked Holmes as he started down the steps towards the stage.

"At a guess, some sort of vortex engine. But it's not giving off the sort of residual energies you'd expect. Almost like it's broken."

" _Vortex engine?_ " Josh asked. "Really, Doctor, I must insist – who  _are_  you?"

His screwdriver was chirping with more frequency as he descended. "Here we go!" he said, hopping over the edge into the stage pit. "There's the ticket. In here, boys!"

"I still don't like being called boy," Holmes groused as they ducked into a dark hallway that opened onto the edge of the stage. It led into what looked like a backstage area, full of miscellaneous props and only barely lit by the occasional flickering torch.

The chirping of the Doctor's screwdriver was getting more pronounced as they went deeper into the shadowy backstage.

"Is he always this reticent?" Josh asked Watson as they wound around a large pile of painted wooden shrubbery.

"If it's reticent you want, spend a few days with Holmes," Watson returned with a grin. "I have only lasted so long as his friend from the sense of patience beaten into me from my time in the military."

"I would appreciate it if you didn't speak of me as if I weren't present," Holmes snipped.

"I'm being more than fair," Watson laughed. "The stories I could tell you, Rabbi! Music at all hours of the night, smoke-filled rooms, chemical concoctions of the most malodorous nature… on more than one occasion, he's started a fire."

" _One_  occasion," Holmes interjected huffily, "and if you hadn't moved the curtain so quickly it wouldn't have been a problem."

"Living with him can be a nightmare," Watson assured him with a laugh.

"You live together?" asked Josh curiously.

Holmes and Watson exchanged a look. It was a very particular look. The sort of look you get when you're worried you've just offended the sensibilities of Jesus Christ.

"It isn't—"

"We aren't—"

"That is to say—"

"It's quite all right," Josh laughed. "Judge not lest ye be judged. Love in all its forms is sacred."

"It isn't like that at all!" Watson insisted.

"Isn't it?" the Doctor mumbled, still scanning with his screwdriver. "I'd always suspected."

Holmes looked apprehensively to Watson, who was frowning back at him. Holmes's expression spoke of a man with a thousand things on his mind but who lacked the courage to say a single one. Watson frowned at him.

"It isn't like that," Watson said slowly, "right?"

"Doctor—!"

Scarcely a second after Josh had uttered the word, the room was illuminated with a brilliant golden glow. They all four spun around and found themselves confronted with an ethereal being made, it seemed, from nothing but warmth and light. It seemed to hum.

"Is that—?" Josh began, as if hardly daring to believe it.

"An angel!" Watson breathed.

"That's not an angel," Holmes warned. "Angels don't need vortex engines."

"But it  _is_  an angel!" Josh insisted, grabbing the Doctor by the sleeve. "The same kind that came to prophesize the birth of John – the kind my mother spoke of!"

The Doctor said nothing. Holmes swatted him in the shoulder.

"Doctor," he hissed, "tell them it isn't an angel!"

"It, uh," the Doctor fumbled, "it isn't an angel?"

" _With conviction!_ "

"Well, I don't know, do I?" the Doctor said with a frown. "I've seen Satan once before; stands to reason that this might be an angel. Hello, there!"

The being hummed and flickered. It was vaguely humanoid shaped, though it was impossible to guess exact shapes with the blinding light.

"My name's the Doctor, this is Sherlock Holmes, that's John Watson, and that's Joshua. We, uh, we come in peace?"

Joshua fell to his knees and gripped his dark curls. "I can feel him in my mind!" he cried, his body starting to tremble. "His light sears me!" He started to scream.

"Get him up," the Doctor said, backpedaling. "Get him up!"

Watson and Holmes grabbed Josh by either arm and hauled him to his feet, though he was still screaming.

The figure in front of them went from golden to blood red. Beacons of light rippled and wavered until they were more akin to flame.

"Angel or not, it's angry now! Run, run!"

The ground began to rumble beneath their feet. They took off out of the theatre as fast as they could, but once they reached Damascus Street, Joshua collapsed into unconsciousness.

 

o :: o :: o

 

"How is he?"

"Still out. How's your device coming along?"

"Nearly done. A few more adjustments and we should be ready to go."

"It's a broom on a pole."

"It's  _non-technological technology_. Saved me more than once."

"He's waking up."

Joshua blinked open his eyes. The pounding in his head that had knocked him out was gone. In fact, he felt completely refreshed.

The first thing he saw was Watson, leaning over him with a kind smile and a strange metal device hanging out of his ears.

"Your pulse is nice and steady," Watson said, "and your eyes are clear. Whatever it is that caused you to lose consciousness has passed."

"Where are we?" he asked as he sat up.

"Capernaum." It was Holmes, sitting in the corner and smoking a pipe. "We slung you over Matthew's newly-purchased camel. You were out the whole ride."

Josh looked around. The house was rich brown adobe, with a single window that let shine through a shaft of sunlight. It was just before dusk.

"I don't really remember what happened," Joshua admitted sheepishly.

"An angel happened," Holmes replied as he nibbled contemplatively on the end of his pipe. "Or at least, something very much like an angel."

"We'll be able to know for sure what it is soon." It was the Doctor this time, standing on the far side of the room. He had built some absurd contraption from a broom, a scythe, several camel bridles and a trough. Josh could not imagine what it was.

His confusion must have been obvious on his face, because Holmes laughed. "Yes, that was my reaction."

"It's a  _scanner_ ," the Doctor insisted. "Not much to work with in first-century Galilee, is there? Have to make do with what you've got. It just needs a few more pieces and then it should be ready to roll." With that, he set off to adjust the length of the bridles.

"You said that angels came to prophesize your birth," Holmes said.

"You know that, Holmes," Watson chided. "At least you should. I mean, you've read the… ah, well, you know."

" _That_ , Watson, is a centuries-old book that's been translated and retranslated, and has been empirically proven incorrect in at least one respect," Holmes countered as he gestured towards Joshua. "This is an immediate problem that demands immediate evidence."

"That's how my mother tells it, yes," Joshua said. "Angels came to prophesize my birth and the birth of my cousin, John."

"John the Baptist?" Watson asked, sounding surprised.

Josh hesitated. "I wouldn't call what he does  _baptism_ , exactly," he said slowly. "With his erratic nature, what he does is more akin to… forced near-drowning. I should know; he did it to me."

Holmes chuckled.

"His intentions are good!" Josh said hurriedly. "His zeal is undeniable. He just gets excited easily and tends to shove unsuspecting strangers underwater while yelling about the Lord's powers to cleanse sin."

Holmes erupted into laughter.

"We should meet him," the Doctor said. "Holmes, can I borrow your pocket watch?"

Holmes, still laughing, passed it over. The Doctor nodded his thanks and opened the back, tearing out the mechanics. Holmes didn't seem to notice.

"But I meant that. We should meet him. What happened to you back in Sepphoris was no accident, Josh. It was a biopsychic reaction. Something about the proximity to that being, whatever it was, tripped a huge flood of endorphins, not to mention an earthquake. If they prophesized your birth as well as his, then there must be some further common link."

"We based a  _religion_  around this!" Holmes said, voice thick with mirth. "We kill in the name of a man who doesn't even think he's the Son of God! All that bloodshed, all that hatred, all that war, and for what? For this!"

"Holmes," the Doctor said lowly.

"People are so  _stupid_ ," Holmes said, his laughter now full of painful irony. "They lose perspective so easily. We spend so much time focusing on differences that we fail to see how similar we all are. And we go to war to defend an abstract idea because it conflicts with someone else's abstract idea! Even when both ideas are fundamentally incorrect!"

"Holmes!" Watson cried. "That's enough!"

Holmes stood and left through the curtain draped over the door. The Doctor sighed.

"I'm sorry about him," the Doctor said apologetically. "Josh, where's John now?"

"He…" Josh frowned. "He should be in Capernaum, somewhere. Probably by the Sea of Galilee, baptizing more victims."

"Go with him, Watson?" asked the Doctor. "I'll catch up once I'm done with this."

Watson nodded. "Of course." He offered Josh a hand up, and together they left the house and walked onto the arid streets of Capernaum.

For a long while, they walked in silence.

"Your friend has so much anger," Josh observed.

"Holmes is a complicated man," Watson replied carefully.

"I understand his cynicism. I don't blame him. This world is callous and entropic, and it's hard to believe that any god could exist without being cruel and malicious."

Watson looked at him in silence.

"But…" Josh sighed. "Even if he doesn't believe in God, he should believe in  _something_. To go through one's whole life with faith in nothing, it's hardly a life at all."

They soon found themselves at the edge of the Sea of Galilee, and just as Josh had predicted, there was a wild-haired man standing waist-deep in the water, holding a young boy beneath the surface. He was screaming something about the Lord.

"Hi, John," Josh called, loud enough to be heard from the shore.

John looked up. He was nut-brown and rail-thin with black eyes that shone like glass.

"Josh!" he replied, yanking the boy up, who spat and gasped for air. "How you doing, cousin?"

John the Baptist waded out of the water and shook Josh's hand. Josh wiped it off on his tunic.

"This is my new friend, Watson," he said. "Watson, this is John."

"Another apostle?" John guessed, leaning forward and squinting at him.

"Ah, well—"

"He's a sinner. I can see it in his eyes."

"—I… what?"

"Please don't baptize him, John," Josh interjected, inserting himself between the two. "We just need to ask you a few questions."

A voice from behind asked: "Have you ever been to Sepphoris?"

Josh and Watson turned. It was Holmes, his hands buried in the pockets of his waistcoat and his hair falling in his eyes. In the orange light of the setting sun, his aquiline features were put in sharp, clear relief.

"Another sinner," John said, nodding.

"Please don't baptize him, either, John."

"Yes, I went to Sepphoris. Once. Can't stand the place."

"Let me guess," Holmes drawled, "it always gives you a headache?"

John narrowed his eyes at Holmes. "Are you a witch?" he asked suspiciously.

At that moment, the Doctor came running over, holding the bizarre contraption he'd made by the trough, which served as the stand. The multiple camel bridles were flapping as he ran. "I figured it out!" he called. "I figured it out! And it's good news! Or it's about as good as it gets for me."

He set the device down with a clatter.

"John reacts the same way to Sepphoris as does Josh," Holmes told the Doctor.

"Yes, well, that's not too surprising, innit?" the Doctor replied. "My scans have given me a pretty accurate picture of what it is we're dealing with, and what we're dealing with isn't a  _broken_  vortex engine, but one that's still being _built_."

"How does that relate to John and I?" asked Josh.

"Good question, Josh! You said that angels were there to herald both of your births, yeah?"

"As it was foretold," John said with a sage nod.

"Yes, well, the prophecy thing might just be a bit of a coincidence. From what I can discern from the output of the vortex engines, it was designed by a race calling themselves the Syllestines. They've been here for ages. They were probably marooned somehow. But there's no point in speculation when we can just ask, eh?"

Holmes lofted an eyebrow. "Ask?"

"Sure!" the Doctor said as he began to rearrange the bridles hanging off the broom. "See, my people practically invented vortex engines. Actually, we  _definitely_  invented vortex engines, and we've been doing it right since the dawn of time, itself. So for me, if I wanted to – say – replicate the broadcast feed and use it to call them out to us, that would be as simple as…"

The Doctor pointed his screwdriver at the apex of the machine, and it began to spin. The bridles jangled and the trough rattled.

"Are you sure that's a good idea, Doctor?" Watson asked. "Last time we saw them…"

There appeared over the water a brilliantly glowing golden figure wreathed in light and humming gently. Josh swallowed, worried he'd suffer the same effects as before. John, on the other hand, stumbled backward and dropped to his knees.

"An angel of the Lord!" he cried.

The humming continued. The Doctor frowned and stepped forward.

"Sorry," the Doctor said loudly, over the humming, "we're using conflicting translational circuits and they can't understand you. D'you mind if I just…?"

His screwdriver buzzed and the humming suddenly morphed into words.

"… don't know  _how_  you managed to tap into my feed, but—oh! Oh, my! Can you hear me now?" It was the angel – the Syllestine – and he no longer sounded quite so angelic.

"Yes, we can!" the Doctor said. "Good to meet you, I'm the Doctor, he's Sherlock Holmes, he's John Watson, he's Joshua, he's John, and that's a mouthful. And what's your name?"

"I'm Thressara of Syllestine," was it's – his? – response. "How did you tap into my feed?"

"Oh, long story sort, I'm sort of a genius," the Doctor said with a grin. "So what's all this about building a vortex engine?"

"Oh!" Thressara said. "Yes, that's precisely what I'm trying to do. You see, I had a bit of a mishap back on Sylles, pushed the wrong button at the wrong time, accidentally opened a rift into the Causal Nexus, next thing you know I'm hurtling blindly through space and time, and I'm spat back out here!"

The Doctor laughed. "Oh, I get it now! And ancient Galilee isn't exactly chocked full of parts you can build a vortex engine out of, and that's where these two come in!" He motioned to Josh and John.

"What do you mean?" Josh asked, frowning.

"You two are rift modulators! See, normally they're supermagnetized pieces of metal, but it's hard to come by that much in ancient Galilee, so instead they put it all into you two! The reason you get headaches at the theatre in Sepphoris is because your presence there tries to open up a rift in space and time. If both of you were to go there at once, pop goes the weasel."

"What's a weasel?" Josh asked.

"Never mind."

"He's right," Thressara said. "I designed it so once the ship was ready and passed through the rift, it would snap shut and your lives would go back to normal. I never wanted to hurt you, I just needed a way home!"

"And I'm guessing you called yourself an angel because it was convenient and safe."

"It's a primitive planet – uh, no offense," he added quickly. "I didn't think they'd react well to a stranded alien life form asking for help to build a vortex engine back home."

"Tell you what, Thressara," the Doctor said, stepping forward. "I've got myself a vortex engine complete with shell. You destroy your half-assembled engine and I'll give you a lift home, myself."

Suddenly, John piped up from his supine position on the dirt. "So my birth  _wasn't_  prophesized by angels?" he asked, sounding offended.

"Err, no," said Thressara. "Sorry."

 

o :: o :: o

 

Holmes and Watson walked on either side of Josh through Nazareth, which, a few hours after sunset, was quiet and still.

"Does this change anything for you, Rabbi?" Watson asked.

"No," Josh laughed. "Well, it's changed my outlook, perhaps. But as far as my plans are concerned? Not a thing."

"Good," Watson said with a smile. "Because I believe you're doing good work. Christ or not, your message is an important one."

"Even if people end up grossly misinterpreting you," Holmes added. Watson sighed.

"So it's true, then?" Josh asked. "I had my suspicions, but you really are from the future. The Doctor from another planet entirely."

Watson's initial surprise melted into a smile. "It's true," he said. "Holmes was right. You're clever."

Josh smiled back at him. "Go with God, John Watson," he said, placing a hand on his shoulder. It was warm and calming and made him feel safe. Then he turned to Holmes. "And as for you, Sherlock Holmes…"

Holmes met his dark eyes unwaveringly. Josh placed his hand on the crux between his neck and shoulder.

"I hope you find something to believe in," he said. "Even if it's not God."

The TARDIS engines thrummed lowly, and it appeared in front of them in a rush of cool air. Josh, who'd seen it take off earlier, just smiled.

The Doctor poked his head out the door. "Well, our friend from Syllestine is safe and sound back home," he said. "Holmes, Watson, you ready?"

They bid their last farewells and headed back into the TARDIS. The Doctor and Watson went up to the console, bouncing ideas for their next location. Holmes stood by the door and watched in silence.

He wondered if Watson knew that he'd already found something to believe in.

He wondered if Watson knew that he was what he believed in. Completely, thoroughly, and unconditionally.


	5. The Frailty of Genius

When Watson awoke, the TARDIS was quiet and still. He dressed and emerged from his room – inexplicably equipped with a bunk bed – only to find the console room just as empty and silent as the rest of the ship. The primary lights were off, filling the room with the soft, turquoise glow from the core.

He ran a hand contemplatively around the edge of the console, silently admiring the remarkable machine. The engines oscillated and it sounded almost like a purr.

"She's beautiful, isn't she?"

Watson turned and saw Holmes, wearing his red dressing gown with his arms folded behind his back.

"Yes," Watson agreed, looking back to the core.

"I have reason to suspect that she may be sentient," Holmes continued, wandering forward until he was standing next to Watson.

"What makes you say so?" he asked, surprised.

"Little things," replied Holmes. "Trifling things on their own, meaningless – but together, strongly suggestive."

They watched the console for a while in silence.

"Where's the Doctor?" Watson eventually wondered.

"Sleeping," Holmes answered. "He told me that his usual sleep cycle is eighteen hours once a week. I'm not sure if I believe him, but so far it seems to be proving correct."

"Why would he lie?" wondered Watson.

"He's 900 years old. Why wouldn't he?"

"900 years old…" Watson shook his head in disbelief. "Incredible. Do all Time Lords live to be so old?"

Holmes didn't answer. Instead he turned on the primary screen and began scrolling through the coordinates.

"You know," Holmes remarked as casually as he could manage, "I believe I've learned how to fly her."

Watson stared at him as if waiting for the punch line. When none came, he let loose a bark of a laugh. "Surely you can't be serious, Holmes!"

"I'm perfectly serious," Holmes returned. "It's a simple matter of observation and inference."

"But you could only have seen it half a dozen times."

"Four times, in fact," he corrected. "More than enough for me to learn the basics."

Watson laughed. "You are a marvel, Holmes."

"So what do you say, Watson?" he asked, smiling. "Fancy a trip?"

Watson looked towards the back hallway, his expression speaking of the devious joy a child experiences when he willfully breaks the rules. "Without the Doctor?"

Holmes grinned and cranked up a large lever. "Who needs him? I'm beginning to suspect he doesn't know what he's doing any more than we do." He circled to the other side of the console and began flipping switches rapidly. The TARDIS engines hummed to life and the central core started to oscillate.

"But where would we go?" Watson asked, following Holmes to the other side of the console.

"I can set the coordinates to random," replied Holmes, tapping at a small screen demonstratively. "Anywhere, anywhen. What do you think?"

He looked at Watson with a smirk, his hand hovering over a large lever. His eyes were glinting with excitement, and Watson could not help but feel the same rush of adrenaline.

Watson grabbed the lever and pulled. The TARDIS lurched to one side dramatically, and Holmes laughed. They were thrown around the console room for close to two minutes before it came to an abrupt stop. Holmes and Watson caught themselves on the back railing, still laughing. Holmes threw off his dressing gown as he went striding down towards the door.

"A brave new world, Watson, that we shall explore together." He pushed open both doors.

They were met immediately with a rush of hot, humid air and a soft buzzing that came from all sides. Watson emerged behind Holmes, closing the TARDIS doors and slipping the key into his pocket.

"A jungle," Watson remarked.

The canopy, stretching so far above their heads and in parts dropping down in curling vines, was a rich shade of green, so deep that it was nearly blue. Tree trunks, enormous in girth, came down as massive black pillars. All around the jungle floor were plants, brightly colored and vibrant, growing into flowers of such strange and exotic beauty that the whole package left them staring in admiring silence for nearly a minute.

"A jungle," Holmes agreed, "but not without signs of civilization."

"My dear Holmes—!"

"Look here."

Holmes threw himself onto the jungle floor, rather like a bloodhound, pointing to tracks in the dirt, which, to Watson, were all but invisible.

"Bipedal humanoid tracks," he said as he traced them several yards forward, still on all fours. "And they're dragging something large. I'd wager some sort of game. Larger than a buck, if this drag mark is indeed the flank."

Watson had to squint, but he saw it. He also saw the way the twigs and branches were chipped away from the path they made through the undergrowth.

Holmes sprung to his feet and brushed the dirt and miscellaneous flora from his tweed jacket. "What do you say, Watson? Shall we follow them?"

"How could we not?" Watson returned, sliding his arm congenially into Holmes's as they headed further into the jungle, following the tracks. "You know, Holmes, I had always thought that your deductive powers were limited to… well, to Earth."

Holmes laughed. "I would be lying, indeed, if I were to say that they were not crippled by different planets, species and time periods," Holmes admitted, "but there is always something to be deduced from everything. Every contact, Watson, leaves a trace.

"I say, do you hear that?" In the distance, he began to hear a distant, rhythmic drumming.

"I do," said Holmes with a nod. "I heard it several yards back. It bears a striking similarity to our own hide-covered drums. We can mark this planet as one with at least one sentient life form, probably bipedal."

"All that from the sound of drums?"

"Drums have two possible purposes, Watson," he replied. "Music and long-distance communication. In either event, their use marks a higher thought not indicative of a purely bestial creature. And who better to use drums than a bipedal being with two hands?"

Watson could not help but laugh. "Another time, another planet, and still you astound me!"

"Look!"

They had come to the edge of a large clearing at least three miles in diameter. The debris of the jungle was cleared away to reveal smooth, soft brown soil, upon which was erected thatched huts made from clay and dried leaves, of varying sizes, and at least in the hundreds. But the skyline was dominated by an immense, copper pyramid that glinted in the light of the twin suns.

"By God!" Watson said. "It's beautiful!"

Holmes was smiling. He could see the natives milling around further into the village. They were tall creatures – at least six feet at their shortest – with skin the color of burned copper and tattoos of great beauty and detail circling their arms and necks. Their hair was long and thick, usually falling in braids down their back, and they were dressed in colorfully died furs and hides which swung with beads and tassels. Aside from eyes that were larger than those of humans, they appeared more or less like them.

"The TARDIS has chosen well for us," breathed Holmes. "They appear to be gathering in front of the pyramid. Come!"

They hurried through the village, skirting around pots full of vegetables and children's toys abandoned in the streets. The closer they came to the pyramid the more dense the crowds became, until they were forced to slow to a walk and weave carefully through the packs of people, talking animatedly.

At long last they came to the foot of the pyramid and were met with a row of uniformed guards wielding large scythe-like weapons. Several yards up the front slope of the pyramid was a platform, the railings of which were decorated with garlands. Scarcely a moment later, a man emerged from within the pyramid.

He was monstrously tall, at least eight feet, and thin as a lath. His thick black hair was cropped short to his oblong head and his robes covered every inch of skin between his neck and toes, leaving only his face and arms exposed. He held up his hands and let out a loud cry, so loud it rattled in their ears, and the busy, bustling crowd quieted.

"Brothers and sisters," he said, with surprising power for such a reedy man, "the Council hears your fears, but begs you to remain brave. In these hard times, the A'amka must be strong and unified."

Someone from the crowd yelled out, "What of the mindless?" A general chorus of shouted agreements rung out around him, and the man on the balcony raised a placating hand.

"We have not yet found the cause of the mindless, but—"

"Where is Msimba?" someone else shouted. "Why has he not saved us from this growing threat?"

"We don't know," the elder said. "The Council is working hard to determine—"

"The mindless grow in number every day!" a third person yelled. "Our friends break before our eyes, our family, our children!"

"Where is Msimba?"

"We must fight! We must take up arms!"

"No, no!" the elder cried, desperately, as he slowly lost control of the situation. "We cannot risk war, not now, not against each other!"

Shouting and arguing from all angles slowly overtook the crowd. Holmes gave a precursory glance around, then leaned in to speak to Watson:

"The mindless. An interesting antagonist we are faced with, Watson. What do you make of it?"

Watson frowned. "Some form of mass hypnosis?"

"Perhaps. It is one of several possibilities. But alas, I have no data. Although I have an idea of where I might acquire some." He smirked at Watson, and Watson smirked back. They pushed their way through the crowd, weaving through bodies until they came around the side of the great pyramid.

There was a large stone door with a keystone lock in the center. Holmes leaned in and inspected it carefully.

"You think there are answers in the pyramid?" Watson ventured.

"It's where the elder is, and probably this Council he mentioned," Holmes reasoned as he rummaged through the pockets of his greatcoat. "If nothing else we'll find someone who knows something."

"But how will we get in?" Watson pushed experimentally on the door. "It's shut tight."

Holmes produced the Doctor's sonic screwdriver from his inner pocket and used it along the crevice around the door.

Watson laughed. "You stole his sonic screwdriver?"

"And his psychic paper. Although I wouldn't say  _stole_ ," Holmes said as the massive stone door slowly pushed open with a great scraping noise. "I'll give them back. He certainly doesn't need them while he's sleeping, at any rate."

"How did you learn to use it?"

"By observing. The Doctor used it for two different tasks with no intermediate adjustments," Holmes said. "It stands to reason that it has a psychic interface. Point and think."

"Uncanny," Watson replied, smiling, as they slowly descended into the dark tunnel leading beneath the pyramid. "What exactly are we looking for?"

"Anything. Follow the commotion."

Indeed, the deeper they went beneath the pyramid, the more they became aware of a low rumbling sound. The closer they came to it, the more they were able to recognize it a very loud argument.

"There's the ticket," Holmes said as they came to another keystone-activated door at the end of the hallway. A quick pass with the screwdriver and it grinded open onto a tall, wide room with sandstone walls covered in beautiful murals and a dirt floor. A table stretched down the middle, surrounded by about half a dozen people, all of them tall and dressed colorfully.

The argument stopped abruptly and every head in the room turned to them.

"Good evening," Holmes greeted amicably. "Very nice to make your acquaintance. I'm Sherlock Holmes and this is John Watson." He produced the psychic paper and held it up for them to examine.

One of the older women sitting closer to them sighed out. "At last!" she said. "The emissaries from Katemba!"

Watson gave Holmes an inquiring glance, which Holmes studiously ignored.

"That's us," Holmes said. "How can we help?"

"Is it happening in your village as well?" asked another woman, halfway down the table, who had brass jewelry clicking around her wrists at each movement. "Are you being overrun by the mindless?"

"What exactly are the mindless?" Holmes asked, crossing to the end of the table.

"That's what we were hoping you could explain to us," a man towards the back of the room answered.

"My apologies. We got a bit out of the loop in Katemba. Would you mind explaining what they are for us outsiders?"

They looked amongst each other. Finally, the woman in the middle with the brass jewelry rose from her chair, with the assistance of a gnarled cane. "It is difficult to explain. It must be shown. My fellow Council members will stay here. Come."

She hobbled out the door, motioning for them to follow her back out of the pyramid.

"If I may ask, madam," Watson said, "whenabouts did this start?"

"Less than a month ago," she answered. "The first time it happened we thought it was an isolated medical phenomenon. When it started happening again, some sort of communicable disease. At the rate it's occurring these days, we have run out of explanations."

Intrigued, Watson asked, "What are the symptoms?"

"You'll see for yourself, shortly. Are you a medicine man?"

"After a fashion, yes."

"Then I'll be surprised if you learn more than what our healers know. They are all in the dark."

They climbed the long hallway back out of the pyramid and followed the frail old woman to the edge of the clearing in which the village rested. She hobbled through a few dozen yards of trees and came, at long last, to an enormous area that was fenced in with strong leather tassels and metal pikes.

Milling around in the makeshift cage were at least six-dozen men, women and children, of all shapes, sizes and ages. Some of them had clothes on, and others were naked. But not a single one of them spoke a word. They wandered vaguely, puttering around like confused sheep. Occasionally they would bump into one another and hiss.

"By God," Watson said.

"How long have they been in here?" Holmes asked.

"Some of them since the start," replied the old woman.

"They don't eat?"

"Not so far as we can tell. We've thrown food over the fence before, but they let it rot."

Watson stepped towards the fence, examining a young woman in a bright violet gown by the edge. Holmes joined him.

"Medical opinion?" Holmes asked.

"They seem almost catatonic," Watson answered. "Do they respond to physical pain?"

The old woman's mouth formed a hard, firm line. "Yes," she said, "violently. In fact, they respond to almost everything violently. That's why we had to put them in here."

"Obvious," Holmes remarked, "from the old blood stains around their hands and faces."

"That's why the villagers wanted to go to war, then," Watson said with a deep frown. "How many turn each day?"

"Used to be one a week. These days it's anywhere between two or three every day. We've tried to find them and cage them before they do damage, but already many of them have been slaughtered in the streets."

"Any patterns?" Holmes asked. "Do they share common lineage? Have the same diets, routines, do they frequent the same places?"

The old woman shook her head. "It's random as the rain. There are links between some, but none between all."

Holmes produced a cigarette and a match from his pocket. He struck the match on one of the leather tassels pulled taut around the fence and lit the cigarette, taking a few slow, deliberate puffs.

"What on earth is that?" the old woman asked, eyeing the cigarette.

Holmes didn't respond. He did, however, use the screwdriver to give the nearest mindless a quick scan. Then, not at all dissimilarly from the Doctor, he flipped the screwdriver so it extended out and glanced at the core.

"Holmes, you can't honestly tell me that you know how—"

"Something has collapsed their neural relays," Holmes answered unwaveringly. "Most of their brains are dead. All that's left is the hindbrain. The animal part of them."

Watson blinked at him in astonishment. "What does that mean?"

"I haven't the faintest damned idea," Holmes admitted. "But that doesn't sound like any sort of organic cause to me."

Watson opened his mouth, then shut it again. Frowning, he said, "Indeed not. Unless pathology varies significantly between galaxies, this does not strike me as any sort of medical malady."

"Something else, then. My usual adage of eliminating the impossible does not withstand this test, I fear, Watson. We must eliminate the improbable and work on hunches."

"Not your usual method."

Holmes sneered. "Indeed, not," he agreed. "But we must make do. Madam." He turned back to the old woman, whose eyes were narrowed almost imperceptibly. "What sort of technology do you use here?"

"You two aren't from Katemba," she said.

Holmes smiled. "Indeed we are not," he returned, bowing effusively. "But you may trust me when I assure you that we are here under the best intentions."

She gave them both a very thorough once-over, going so far as to use the end of her gnarled cane to lift Watson's chin and turn it from side to side so she could get a better look. Eventually, the tip of her cane went back to the ground.

"Technology, you say," she repeated. "We have plows, we have dams, we have traps for game and good weapons."

"Well, if it isn't a pathological process making them this way," Holmes said, "then it almost certainly implies a remote neural manipulator."

"Holmes," Watson said, "what the hell are you saying?"

"I'm not sure. Madam, may I inquire as to the state of your metallurgy practice?"

"Metallurgy? Mostly for harvesting equipment and weapons."

"And where do you get the metal?" asked Holmes. "The composition of your soil doesn't seem to lend itself to having many natural mines."

The old woman arched an eyebrow. "I'm not sure what a mine is, stranger, but we get all our metal from the Broken Temple."

Holmes canted his head to one side. "And what, exactly, is the Broken Temple?"

She laughed humorlessly. "Oh, no. You got me to take you this far, and I'll not go a step further. I'm an old woman and my feet ache. You can go there yourselves. Just follow the river north till you hit the bridge and then go west."

"Splendid," Holmes said, tucking the screwdriver into his pocket as he took another drag from his cigarette. "Thank you very much, madam, for your assistance and cooperation. Come along, Watson. The game's afoot."

 

o :: o :: o

 

They had been following the river for about twenty minutes in silence. Watson kept looking across at Holmes with a frown, and Holmes kept rubbing his temples. Maybe it was his dear friend's pathetic failure at subtlety, or maybe it was the fact that he hadn't had a nice, hot cup of tea in over three days, but he was getting a headache.

When Watson finally broke the silence, it was brusquely and angrily. "Holmes, I simply cannot stand it. What was all that you were saying earlier? I know you're brilliant, but collapsing neural relays? Remote neural manipulators?"

"I don't know, Watson. I said that, didn't I? I haven't the vaguest idea."

"Then why on earth did you say it?"

Holmes frowned. "That I also do not know."

They came to the bridge and crossed west. The edge of the sun had just touched the horizon, and the forest was lit with shafts of oblique orange light through the trees. They knew the Broken Temple when they saw it.

"A space ship!" Watson marveled.

Stretched out before them was an immense metal behemoth in a large clearing. Though it was largely overtaken by flora – twisting vines, ferns, saplings, and (in places) full-grown trees – there was no denying that at one point it must have been a magnificent machine.

"Rusted, overgrown, falling apart," Holmes observed as he scanned the scene. "At a guess, it's been here for at least a few hundred years. Possibly more."

They climbed over undergrowth and bramble towards the outer hull. Holmes brushed away a few gnarled vines, exposing part of a large written mural. "IEC Sigma-12," Holmes read. "Shall we see what's inside?"

They managed, after some searching, to find an entrance along the other side of the massive ship. Watson, even with his relatively limited knowledge of technology, could tell that, "This place is gutted."

Mechanics had been ripped out of walls and large chunks of machinery had been replaced with rampant growth of flora. Everything, it seemed, but the bare bones of the ship had been stripped away – and even some of the bones were missing.

"Crash landing," Holmes observed. "An old crash landing. The residents of the ship were bipedal, taller than the average human – if I were to make a guess, forerunners of the race now inhabiting the planet."

"But surely they'd remember! If they built a spaceship, they'd have a more advanced civilization."

"Not necessarily. A million things can happen in any given day that can change the course of history." Holmes dragged a hand over a gutted console and plucked a small white flower from a fern growing through it. "Mother Nature… she is a callous and entropic host. For all her beauty, she is strong and terrible. She could wipe us out with a flick of a finger. It brings everything into perspective, does it not? The brevity of life, the fleeting existence we carve out in our speck of time…"

Watson frowned. "You're getting nihilistic again, Holmes." Back in London, whenever he got so blackly existential, Watson would hit him with a pillow.

Holmes sighed and turned. He tucked the flower into the lapel of Watson's coat.

"I have a job for you."

 

o :: o :: o

 

After some searching, Watson was able to find the old woman who'd shown them to the pen full of mindless. She was sitting on a small whicker basket outside a large hut, stroking a small, rabbit-like animal in her lap.

"Madam," he said with a bow.

"You again," she returned. "Did you find the Broken Temple?"

"We did, yes. My companion is having a look through another area of your village. Would you be amenable to a few questions?"

She gestured wordlessly to the wicker basket next to her own. Watson took a seat.

"How did your world begin? Do you have any stories about it?"

"You want to hear our folklore?" she asked with a chuckle. "You came to the right woman. Or perhaps the wrong one. The elders of the A'amka tend to be longwinded."

Watson smiled. "I'd love to hear a truncated version of how your world began."

She leaned back against the wall of the hut. "The A'amka have been around for a few hundred years now. It is as far back as our records go, at least. The Great Pyramid and the Broken Temple predate us, you know."

"Do they, indeed?"

"Some say that Msimba made them for us to use."

"Msimba… I remember that name from the speech outside the pyramid earlier. Who is Msimba?"

She gestured towards the pyramid looming over the horizon. "Msimba is the wisest of us all. He guides us and protects us. He lives in that pyramid."

"So he's a king?"

She chuckled. "No, stranger. We have no king. Msimba is ageless and amorphous."

"So… a god?"

"No, no," she said, laughing. "He is quite real; ass real as you or I, anyhow. Few have seen him, but they say being in his presence is like staring into the Eye of God."

"Then what does he have to say about the mindless?"

Slowly, the old woman frowned. "He has been strangely silent on the matter. He will speak to us every now and then, but he has said nothing for several weeks…"

Watson frowned. He rose from his chair and tipped his bowler to her. "Thank you, ma'am, you've been extremely informative. I think I shall go find Holmes."

He headed back towards the pyramid, weaving through a thick crowd. There was a scream to his left, abrupt and jarring. He turned and saw, through the arms and torsos of the mob, that a fight had broken out.

"The mindless!" a woman called. "The mindless have escaped!"

Watson swallowed and took off in a dead sprint.

 

o :: o :: o

 

The door to the pyramid, mercifully, had been left open. Even as he descended, he could still hear the screaming from the streets.

"Holmes!" he called, as he looked from one empty chamber to the next. "Whatever your plan is, we must act quickly! Holmes!"

He was out of breath by the time he finally found him. He was sitting in a large metal throne. There was a dead body on the floor.

"Holmes! What the hell happened?"

Holmes looked up at him. He seemed sad and torn.

"I was hoping you'd be gone longer," he said.

"What? Why?"

Holmes was buzzing away with the screwdriver on the arm of the metal chair. "I have worked out everything, Watson. I know precisely what needs doing."

"Then by all means, tell me and we shall do it!"

"I'm afraid that there is nothing you can do."

"Then at least tell me your plan."

Holmes swallowed hard. "Have you worked it out yet, Watson? The cause of the mindless? I imagine by now they have broken through their cage and are on their way here."

Watson blinked at him in astonishment. "They were indeed following me to the pyramid, but they move slowly… how did you know?"

"Because I saw. I saw the murals, I drew the connections, I came here. Look, Watson. Look at the murals."

He did. The same murals he'd seen in the Council's chamber – and indeed, through the whole pyramid – were in this room. They depicted men and machines, telling a linear story across the walls. Watson found them incomprehensible.

"They tell the history of the A'amka. Hidden in plain sight all these years." He continued buzzing with the screwdriver. "It's the reason no one knows the origins of the crashed ship. It's the reason they only remember a few hundred years of history. It all comes back to this room."

"This room?" Watson asked. "What do you mean?"

"Look up."

He did. He nearly fell back.

The apex of the pyramid was a massive metal machine, alive with blinking lights.

"What is that?"

"It's a supercomputer," Holmes said through his teeth. "And no, I don't know how I know that. But what I do know is that it controls the atmosphere, the climate, the vegetation – it makes this planet habitable for the A'amka. It is all that's keeping them alive. And it is malfunctioning."

"But – but why?"

"Because it was built to be operated, not to run on its own. The last time it malfunctioned, I'm guessing that the A'amka had become almost completely mindless. It requires a mind to operate it."

 _Chink-chink_. Manacles suddenly curled out from the arms of the metal throne and locked Holmes's wrists in place.

"It explains why they remember nothing past a few hundred years ago. It explains why the cycle is repeating itself now. The last host has died." Holmes nodded to the dead body.

"You—Holmes— No.  _No._ "

"Watson, there is something I need to tell you."

"No! Holmes, I won't let you do this! The last host died in here – he was never released!"

"Please, Watson. It's important."

"I'm not going to let you sacrifice yourself!"

"It has to be me. I've scanned the interface. It requires someone with a high capacity to operate it – a genius."

There was no pride in his voice, just sadness. Sadness and desperation.

"Please, Holmes," Watson choked, crossing the room towards him on unsteady feet. "You can't do this to yourself. We can find someone else."

"We don't have time for that," Holmes said. "My meddling in this machine has already accelerated the process of creating the mindless, and they're on their way here to take out their biggest threat: this supercomputer. Msimba. It's either this, or the A'amka die."

"Please," Watson begged, gripping Holmes's shoulders.

"Watson, I need to tell you something."

"You can't do this."

" _Listen_ ," Holmes urged, as the computer above them began to hum. "I need you to know that if I could do it all again – if I could go back to St. Bart's and meet you a second time – I would not do a thing differently."

"Holmes," Watson said, his voice breaking.

"Through these long years, you've been so much more to me than just a friend and companion," Holmes said. The lights around the chair were getting brighter, and the humming grew louder. "You accepted my shortcomings as a social creature and you celebrated them. You were loyal and brave and wonderful to the very last, and I need you to know—"

"—Holmes, please—"

"—here at the end of all things, Watson, I need you to know that I love you."

Watson gripped Holmes's shoulders tight enough to bruise. The humming of the machine was almost deafening.

"I love you, John Watson," Holmes said, having to shout over the roar of the computer. "You are my sun and my moon. You are every star in my sky, and I cannot leave this world without you knowing how true it is."

Watson shut his eyes tightly. His chest felt as if it might crush itself.

He grabbed Holmes by the collar and pulled him into a kiss.

The computer above their heads gave a massive spark. The roaring turned into a painful, wailing grind. Watson kissed him painfully. If Holmes was going to sacrifice himself, he would not let him go feeling incomplete.

The ceiling began to collapse. Chunks of metal fell and crashed onto the floor. Still they kissed, desperate and passionate and at the end of the world.

 

o :: o :: o

 

"You two are in  _so_  much trouble."

Watson opened his eyes. The lights were blindingly white, and his shoulder ached dully.

"What happened?" asked Watson, vaguely.

" _You tell me._ "

It was the Doctor. He was standing over his bed – he was lying down, yes, he must have been lying down – and glaring at him.

"You took the TARDIS for a joyride! Didn't you? How did Holmes learn to fly it? And why did you go with him? And _why_  did I have to  _pull you out from beneath the wreckage of a giant pyramid?_ "

Holmes.  _Holmes_.

He sat bolt upright and looked around. The brief grip of terror in his chest settled when he saw Holmes lying in the bed next to him, breathing evenly in his sleep.

"Thank God," Watson said.

"And on that vein, how did he nick my screwdriver?"

"Is he going to be okay?" Watson climbed out of bed and moved to his side, looking him over. He saw no major wounds.

"He sustained a concussion," the Doctor said sourly, "as well as a broken bone or two. Nothing he shouldn't be recovering from soon, and nothing, if I may be so bold, that he didn't entirely deserve. You're avoiding my question!"

Watson sighed and, briefly, explained what happened – the A'amka, the pyramid, the Broken Temple, the sacrifice Holmes had been ready to make.

By the end of his story, the Doctor did not look like he was satisfied.

Watson could detect, however, the ghost of a self-congratulatory smirk.

"I leave you alone for eighteen hours and you sod off and save an entire civilization," the Doctor said. "Who do you two think you are, me?"

Watson put a hand over Holmes's.

The Doctor watched in silence for a while, before he spoke again: "When you kissed him," he explained, "he likely felt a rush of all kinds of endorphins. Dopamine, serotonin, the works. Hooked up to the supercomputer as he was, it probably overloaded the wiring. Sent the entire thing crashing down. It burnt up the last of its power cells to put the planet in a state of permanent habitability. And, in the process, saving the A'amka."

"He said he loved me," Watson whispered.

The Doctor studied him. "Quite right," he returned.

"I never knew…"

"Well, he's not very good with emotions, is he?"

Watson could not help but smile.

"No," he said, "I suppose not."

And somehow, it didn't matter.


	6. The Museum at the End of the World

Holmes had been playing the violin for almost eight hours straight. He hadn't said a single thing to either of them (in fact, he'd snuck out of bed when they had their backs turned to specifically avoid it) and had since barricaded himself in his room in the TARDIS.

Despite Watson's repeated knocking and yelling, the music had not so much as faltered.

It was absolutely maddening. They had so much to discuss and Holmes had locked himself in his bedroom like a petulant child.

And so, of course, he waited. He'd waited two years for Holmes, and he could wait through this.

The Doctor did not appear for some time. When he saw Watson leaning against Holmes's bedroom door, he looked surprised.

"What are you doing out here?"

Watson frowned. "Holmes locked himself in."

"Oh." The Doctor looked between Watson and the closed door, gaze bouncing back and forth for a few perplexed seconds. "That's not at all what I thought you were doing."

Watson could not help but ask: "And what did you think we were doing?"

"Well, I mean, I don't know, do I? Whatever it is you humans do when you're in love. I assume it's a little bit sticky and moist."

A moment of awkward silence passed between them.

"Sometimes it's easy to forget that you're an alien," Watson said. "And then other times it's impossible."

"It isn't as if I go around trying to find out!" the Doctor said defensively. "So what's he doing then? The violin?"

"It's Wagner," Watson sighed. "He only plays Wagner when he needs to introspect. It's taking all my willpower not to fall asleep."

"How long has he been at it?"

Watson checked his pocket watch. "Eight hours."

" _I can hear you out there._ " The music didn't even hiccup. " _You're really not very subtle, the pair of you._ "

"Come on!" the Doctor called, thumping a few times on the door with both hands. "Places to go! People to see! Stuff to do! Can't spend all day locked up!"

Finally, the violin stopped. Watson could hear the click of the clasp on his violin case, and a moment later the door slid open. There stood Holmes, his hair unkempt, his red dressing gown rumpled, and a cigarette hanging from between his lips.

"You look awful," the Doctor observed.

"You look stupid in a bowtie," Holmes riposted.

"There's no need to be  _cruel_."

"Holmes," Watson said severely, "can we  _please_  talk?"

Holmes shrugged off his dressing gown and tossed it into his room just before the door slid shut. "No time. You heard the Doctor. Places to go and all that." And he took off in a brisk walk towards the console room.

"Holmes—!" Watson gave an agitated sigh and took off after him. "Holmes, what are you doing? What are you afraid of?"

"I'm not afraid of anything," said Holmes as he pulled down a large lever that caused the TARDIS engines to hum to life. The Doctor took his spot on the other side of the console, wordlessly setting coordinates as they argued.

"Poppycock! You locked yourself in your room!"

"I needed to think."

"Oh, isn't that  _always_  the way!"

The TARDIS rocked to one side, but no one mentioned it.

"Always  _thinking_. I'm beginning to see that 'thinking' is some sort of cryptic code word for avoiding reality!"

"Well, then let me pose this question to you," Holmes cried over the whining of the engines, "why are  _you_  so desperate to talk about it? Scarcely a moment had gone by before you came banging on my door."

"Don't you try to turn this on me—!"

"It's a fair question! Why not take some time to reflect on it for yourself?"

"Who's to say I haven't?"

"Well, then, enlighten me, dear Watson! To what conclusions have you come?"

Watson opened his mouth, and then snapped it shut a few silent seconds later. He glared at Holmes.

"As I suspected!"

The Doctor sighed heavily. He'd forgotten how annoying human emotions were. He had a feeling that this was going to be a long, tedious trip.

"It's not a one-way street, Holmes," Watson insisted angrily. "It's about give and take. Besides, we're going to have to talk about it  _eventually_. It's ridiculous to assume that you can avoid the subject forever!"

"We're here," the Doctor volunteered.

"I tell you that I need more time."

"More time? Three years of friendship and eight hours locked away with your violin wasn't enough?"

"Perhaps it wasn't!"

"And that speech you gave in the pyramid? It almost sounded  _rehearsed_  for how much you meant it, Holmes."

"There are other factors on my mind."

"We're here!" the Doctor repeated, louder.

"Other factors like what?"

"You're being needlessly combative, Watson."

"Combative! I'm not being combative; you're being evasive!"

" _Boys!_ " The Doctor grabbed Watson by the sleeve and Holmes by the back of his collar to get their attention. "We're here! Squabbles in a box, if you please!"

"He started it," Holmes groused, shrugging out of the Doctor's grip and striding towards the door.

"Humans!" the Doctor said. "Honestly!"

"Oh,  _I_  started it, did I? It wasn't I that strapped myself into a death chair, Holmes!"

Holmes was the first one out of the TARDIS. The argument crackled out as they took stock of their location: an immense marble foyer lined with flags that hung from the vaulted ceiling. Some of them Holmes recognized – the American flag, the Union Jack, the French flag – but others he did not. The massive room was otherwise barren, however, gleaming white and echoing with a faint buzzing sound.

"Where are we?" asked Watson, mystified.

"By the look of it," the Doctor answered as he locked the TARDIS door, "some sort of state hall. A senate, a House…"

"A museum," Holmes corrected.

"How can you be so sure?" asked the Doctor, eyeing him.

Holmes crossed to the wall, where a large display case held several stacks of cards. "Because it says so on this pamphlet." He flipped open one of the cards.

"Every time I think you've done something clever, it turns out not to be clever at all," the Doctor said, sounding somewhat disappointed.

"What I do isn't based in cleverness," Holmes said, "it's just logic. Look at this."

Watson and Holmes moved to either side and looked over his shoulders.

"The First Great and Bountiful Human Empire Historical Museum," Holmes read. "Home of Old Earth's greatest artifacts, including descendants of the first cloned dinosaurs, remnants of the Z-Day, and the Sistine Chapel."

"The  _Sistine Chapel?_ " Watson repeated, flabbergasted. "They moved the entire chapel into a museum?"

The pamphlet projected a hologram of the Sistine Chapel a few inches above the cardstock demonstratively.

"Where are we?" Holmes asked as he looked around. "Which planet?"

"Earth, smells like," said the Doctor. "Late Earth, too. If I were to a hazard a guess… couple billion years after your time."

"A couple  _billion?_ " Watson laughed. "Incredible!"

The Doctor squinted across the hallway and then took off in a jog towards the large glass door. Holmes and Watson went after him, slowing to a stop as they looked through it and up at the sky.

"The sun!" Watson said.

It was a deep crimson color and at least fifty times larger, hovering in the sky like a massive bloodstain.

" _Very_  late Earth," the Doctor observed, leaning against the glass. "Your sun has turned into a red giant. At a guess, it's a few hundred years away from going nova."

"Nova?" asked Holmes.

"Supernova. Exploding star."

"How dismal," Watson muttered. "I wonder… if this is a museum so prestigious as to have the Sistine Chapel, whereabouts is the traffic?"

"Excellent observation, Watson," Holmes said, "and a fair question. The most probable explanation is that it's closed for the evening."

The lights flickered and buzzed. They became aware of a low, sinister hiss.

"But then," continued Holmes slowly, "we don't deal very often with what is probable."

"Electrical fluctuations," the Doctor said, sounding altogether too excited. He produced his sonic screwdriver from his pocket and scanned the area. "Whoa, nelly, big electrical fluctuations! No discernible cause, either. Know what that means, boys?"

"I have an idea, yes," Holmes said.

"It means we have a mystery! Another proper Holmes and Watson mystery! Will you wear the deerstalker this time, Holmes?"

"For the last time, Doctor,  _no_."

"I think you should wear the deerstalker."

"I'm not going to wear that ridiculous hat—"

"You're being disingenuous!"

"For geniuses," remarked Watson, "you both have the innate ability to bicker like children."

"So," Holmes said, sneering, "electrical fluctuations, you say? Not my strongest area of expertise, electricity, but where there are electrical fluctuations, logically, there must be an electrical generator, must there not?"

"Must be, yes," the Doctor replied. "Best place to check is the cellar. Maybe a closet somewhere."

Watson had gone back to looking over the pamphlet. The Doctor and Holmes spent a while discussing a course of action, and a moment later Watson spoke up, breaking into the conversation:

"May I perhaps look around?"

They both turned to look at him synchronously.

"What?" Watson asked. "I'm curious. So much of my planet's history in one place, how could I say no?"

"It could be dangerous," said the Doctor unsteadily.

"With you, it's always dangerous," Holmes riposted. "Watson is perfectly capable of looking after himself, however."

The Doctor seemed surprised. "You aren't going with him?"

"If I did that, he'd never stop interrogating me. Watson, good luck. Let's reconvene here in an hour's time. Come along, Doctor."

Holmes had spoken so quickly and fluidly that neither of them could manage a proper argument. Indeed, he'd taken off for a large set of stairs before either could digest the orders. The Doctor gave Watson an apologetic look.

"Right," he said. "See you in an hour, Watson. Toodle pip."

 

o :: o :: o

 

"Do I have to take you two to the planet of the marriage counselors?"

Holmes leaned down and inspected the lock on a large metal door. Then he snatched the Doctor's screwdriver and it clicked open with some provocation.

"The last thing I need is a Time Lord butting in on my relationship with Watson," Holmes said as he passed the screwdriver back to an indignant Doctor.

"What I'm having trouble understanding is why you  _are_  so reluctant to talk about it."

Holmes sneered at him. "Your metaphor is flawed," he said evasively. "Watson and I aren't married."

"Oh, come  _on_. I've read the stories he wrote. You live together, you get on each others' nerves, you'd gladly lay down your lives for one another – you're married. And you know, it wasn't a metaphor. There really is a planet of the marriage counselors."

On the other side of the locked door was a fairly large boiler room. In the center was a massive metal pillar fenced off from everything else. It was alive with crackling blue energy.

"There's something he doesn't know about me," Holmes said softly. "Something I've kept hidden from him. I never told him because I thought it wouldn't matter. Now that it does, I'm worried it could ruin everything."

The Doctor studied him silently, frowned, and walked forward to investigate the generator. He gave it a quick scan with his screwdriver.

"Seems to be operating within normal parameters," he said.

"Then what caused the fluctuation?"

"What, indeed?" The Doctor asked as he tucked his screwdriver into his pocket.

 

o :: o :: o

 

Watson had always liked museums. They made him feel detached from life and his problems. He could step back and observe the world through the critical lens of history, and feel awed and miniscule.

His wandering took him through a long hallway, "The History of Folklore" according to the sign. There were brass statues of unicorns, ghostly photographs of transparent people, and all manner of crystals and talismans. Floating placards hovered by their artifacts, inviting guests to press a button and hear an explanation read to them aloud, "in their native language discerned via psychic field".

Watson came to a slow stop in front of a large framed picture. It was drawn in pencil, depicting a small child in a bed. Standing over him was a ghastly, hooded figure, whose only visible facial features were his long, pointed teeth. Watson frowned and could not help but feel a sense of familiarity. He pressed the button on the placard.

"Humans of earth with small children," said the placard, "sometimes employed scare tactics in order to encourage their offspring to follow the rules. Depicted hear is a fourteenth-century version of a phenomenon known most commonly as the  _boogeyman_ , though over time it went under many names, including the Sack Man in early Latin countries, the Babau in Mediterranean regions, Butzemann in Germanic countries, and Bloodybones in many English-speaking countries between the 17th and 24th centuries."

Watson shivered. Bloodybones…

"The exact nature of the boogeyman varies from culture to culture, and indeed lacks any sort of distinct appearance in many, but is remarkable in and of itself for its ubiquitous nature. The boogeyman phenomenon spreads not only across the human race, but also through many other cultures in different galaxies across the universe.

"What remains constant is the boogeyman's purpose. In every story, he snatches up disobedient children in the night time and carries them off, and though exact fates vary, they are never seen or heard from again."

A panel on the wall next to the picture opened up. Out slid a small glass box, in which was a very old silver music box, which opened on its own. From small holes, a haunting melody echoed out:

" _He creeps around at night-time,  
_ _His claws as black as death,  
_ _And all the children run and hide  
_ _Lest they feel his icy breath.  
_ _Oh, Bloodybones is coming,  
_ _So you best stay in bed,  
_ _Or he will take a strip of flesh  
_ _For every tear you shed."_

The music box closed and the panel slid back into the wall.

The lights flickered and Watson's heart began to race.

"Electrical fluctuations," he said, recalling what the Doctor had told them. But the words were meaningless to him, and the tremor of fear only intensified. The lights flickered again.

And for a moment, he was back in Edinburgh, in that dilapidated pile of wood he called a childhood home. He was hiding under the covers with his little brother, Harry, and his older brother, James. Harry and he sat in rapt fascination as James told them the sinister story of Bloodybones.

When he was little he'd had such a clear picture of the fiend in his mind, from the top of his wild black hair, past his razor-sharp teeth, his terrible claws, and his bloodsoaked apron. He would hide under the covers, curled so tightly that he was little more than a trembling lump beneath the sheets. Every scratch, every rattle, every gust of mournfully moaning wind was an omen of Bloodybones. and all he could do was hide and try to sleep.

But he was older now. A man in his thirties should not be this scared.

His old wound from Afghanistan ached. He left the hallway full of folklore, crossing into another exhibit, "The History of Warfare".

Guns and swords and missiles lined the walls in glass cases. The lights still flickered and his heart still hammered. He stopped by a case with what looked like a pair of immense black rifles. Tiny white lights were illuminated down the barrel.

The longer Watson stared at the guns, the more desperately he wished he could reach in and take them. He'd feel more at ease with something to defend himself.

He no longer felt safe, though he couldn't say why. He hadn't been this terrified since those horrible nights in his youth. He had to find Holmes and the Doctor.

He turned on a heel, his heart still thumping in his ear, when a shadow raced past the corner of his eye.

His old wound ached, the sort of pain that radiates all the way to your teeth. He turned his head and looked down the hallway through which the shadow had moved, but saw nothing.

"Hello?" he called. His voice was echoless and dead. "Is that you, Holmes? Doctor?"

And then, a dry, hoarse cackling. It came from all directions at once, and faded into a sinister gurgling sound, as if it was stopped by choking on blood or bile.

Watson's dread turned into terror. He wordlessly slapped a hand on the placard near the twin rifles.

"These rifles saw combat through the sixty-second to sixty-third centuries in the Eighth and Ninth Great Intergalactic Wars with the Omicron Galaxy. They are designated HWDTW 27-Mark-Sigma, and fire concentrated blasts of photons, then known as lasers. What made the HWDTW 27-Mark-Sigma an impressive weapon was its lack of need for a power source, charging, or consumable ammunition. It revolutionized warfare, and was used well into the hundred-and-twelfth century."

He could feel his heartbeat in his throat. He quickly shrugged off his greatcoat and threw it over the glass before he rammed his elbow against it. The glass shattered dully. The lights went off and a low alarm began to wail.

"This museum has detected deliberate and unlawful activity. This museum is going into lockdown."

The room was flooded with a light redder than blood, but all Watson cared about was the pair of rifles, newly freed from their glass case. Praying that they worked, he cocked one along the barrel experimentally and fired into the wall.

A blast of reddish light fired out from the end and blew a black hole clean through. Watson took a moment to admire the rifle before he grabbed the other one.

There came again the cackling, dry as a desert. With a cocked rifle in each hand, Watson surveyed his surroundings.

"The authorities have been notified. This museum has gone into lockdown."

With the red floodlights, he felt as if he were looking at it through a thin film of blood. Shadows skittered across the floor, hissing, fleeting, ducking in and out of sight.

His old military instincts were kicking in. Back to the wall. Arms out. Ready to fire. Whatever it was that was with him, it was not interested in negotiations.

 

o :: o :: o

 

On their way out of the cellar, the Doctor and Holmes stopped in an exhibit: "Art Through the Ages". Holmes was admiring the Mona Lisa, hands behind his back, in silent reverence. The Doctor came up behind him.

"Funny odd thing, this," the Doctor said. "The electrical fluctuations are affecting every piece of equipment in the museum, but nothing outside it. That's not the sort of pattern you'd expect it to take."

" _La Jaconde_ ," Holmes said, and the Doctor looked up at it.

"Ah, yes," the Doctor replied, "the Mona Lisa. It lives forever."

"What is her secret?" wondered Holmes, his head canting to one side. "I know she must have one. She wears the same smile you do, and you're nothing but secrets."

The Doctor looked at him disdainfully, but decided he was right enough. "Didn't pin you for an appreciator of art. Doesn't seem practical enough."

"Art is not meant to be practical. It is meant to be thought-provoking. It is meant to make you wonder, make you admire. And for that I consider art for art's sake an invaluable part of society and life in general."

The Doctor smiled.

"What's that one called?" asked Holmes, crossing a few feet to the other side of the exhibit. It was a large painting in a brass frame, depicting a cascade of stars.

"Ah, that," said the Doctor. "That's  _the Eye of God_ , by Doce. I always liked that one."

Holmes studied the way the stars swirled together into a bright vortex. "It's lovely," he decided after a moment. "It gives me a sense of awe. It almost…"

_Crack._

They both turned. The noise was faint, but it was most certainly—

"Glass breaking," the Doctor said.

"This museum has detected deliberate and unlawful activity."

" _Watson!_ "

"This museum is going into lockdown."

Wordlessly, they took off in a sprint.

 

o :: o :: o

 

"Are you scared, little John Watson?"

The voice was like an icy tongue in his ear. He leapt off the wall and whirled around, his twin rifles pointing out, but there was nothing there.

"I remember the taste of your fear so well. Hiding under the covers, praying I wouldn't find you…"

"Who's there?" he demanded, his voice betraying his terror.

"But I always knew you were there, little John Watson. I watched you."

"Show yourself!"

The cackling spun around him, dissolving into that wretched gurgling sound, and then into a vicious growl. And then, silence – save for the thumping of his heart in his ear and his own harsh, ragged breathing.

" _He creeps around at night-time,_ " came the ragged voice, with its song like sandpaper, " _his claws as black as death._ "

"Who's there!" Watson cried, louder, spinning round on his heel but seeing nothing.

" _And all the children run and hide, lest they feel his icy breath._ "

He pushed his way through the display stands, despite his blinding fear, hunting for the origin of the ghastly singing.

" _Oh, Bloodybones is coming, so you best stay in bed…_ "

"Come out, demon!"

"…  _or he will take a strip of flesh for every tear you shed._ "

It came lurching out of the shadows of a doorway, as if melting out of the blackness. It was a ghastly figure, tall and crooked, with a head of wild hair and claws as sharp as talons, glistening and shiny red.

It loped toward him, leaping so high into the air that Watson fell back in astonishment. He held up both rifles and fired blindly. The bursts of red light tore ragged holes in its side, but still it descended, his coat flapping like bat's wings.

He hit the floor hard, with the monstrous creature on top of him. His rifles skittered away.

Its face was mad and twisted, its eyes burning. It raised one bloody, bone-like claw over its head.

What stopped it from laying that fatal blow was not immediately apparent to Watson in the fog of his terrified brain. A moment later, however, he became aware of the tip of a blade protruding through Bloodybones's chest.

"Get off him, hellish wretch!"

He was flung to one side, crashing into a display stand full of arrows. There stood Holmes, wielding a katana in each hand, with their blades glinting red in the floodlight.

"Watson," Holmes greeted, perhaps too cordially for the situation, "all right, there?"

"Your timing, Holmes, is impeccable!"

Holmes offered him a roguish smile and a hand to help him up off the floor. Watson rose and dusted off his waistcoat in time to see that Bloodybones had vanished, leaving nothing but a shattered display case.

"What was it, Watson?" asked Holmes.

"It was – God, you'll never believe me!"

"We're in the year 4,820,130,209, my dear Watson. In the spectrum of what's believable, there is a great deal of room."

"It was… you've heard the old story of Bloodybones, haven't you?"

Holmes frowned and shook his head. "I'm afraid I have not."

Watson was surprised. "You haven't? But surely it's one of the most popular stories in England!"

"I'm not sure what to tell you, Watson. I've never heard of it. What is Bloodybones?"

At that moment, the Doctor ran over to them. He grabbed one shoulder of Holmes's and one of Watson's to slow himself down. "He's gone. I scanned the whole wing; there are no life signs for anyone but us. Are you all right, Watson?"

Watson frowned at the Doctor. "It was… at least, I think it was Bloodybones."

"Bloodybones?" the Doctor repeated, surprised. "What, really?"

"The Time Lord knows about Bloodybones but somehow I don't?" Holmes bemoaned.

"What did he look like?"

Watson shivered involuntarily. "Exactly like my nightmares," he murmured. "Wild black hair; sharp, gnashing teeth; terrible black claws, covered in blood…"

"Will someone please tell me what Bloodybones is?" Holmes asked impatiently.

"Old English folk story," the Doctor replied succinctly, "a boogeyman. Carries off small children in the night. Tons of cultures have them."

"It must have been him," Watson said. "But how? He's just a legend, a story!"

"All legends have some basis in fact," the Doctor answered uncertainly. "But this doesn't sound like one of those cases. Very rarely is a story exactly as one particular person remembers it."

Holmes frowned, but found no flaw in the logic. "Where does that leave us?"

The Doctor fell silent. His eyes were open but it was apparent to Holmes that he wasn't seeing anything. His mind was working, turning over facts and figures, statistics and probability, analyzing every possibility.

"He looks like you do," Watson remarked, smiling.

Holmes looked across at him. Their eyes met and Holmes's skin suddenly felt too tight on his body.

"Drop your weapons and come into the light with your hands up!"

Pooled at the mouth of the hallway was a swarm of heavily-armored men in helmets with shields.

"Oh, right," said the Doctor, as if he was just remembering, "we triggered the alarm system."

 

o :: o :: o

 

The police captain, a tall and burly fellow with a large moustache, handed the psychic paper back to the Doctor.

"My apologies, Your Holiness," he said with an inclination of his head, "I didn't know you were scheduled to visit this evening. The alarm system shouldn't have been tripped at all."

"Yes, well," said the Doctor, sniffing, "don't let it happen again. Do you come here often?"

"Every weekend for routine inspection, Your Holiness."

"And do you ever notice anything… strange?"

The crowd of policemen, who had, up till then, been muttering amongst each other, suddenly got very quiet.

"Not… not as such, Your Holiness."

Holmes, who was given back his twin katanas, stepped forward as he hitched the sheathes onto his belt. "Lying is unbecoming, Captain. You believe this building haunted, do you not?"

"It would be ridiculous for a police captain to admit to such a thing," he answered delicately, "but there have been strange things. We've all seen them."

"Just at night," one of the other policemen volunteered.

"But sometimes during the day," another said.

"A great black demon—" one began.

"—a terrible crone with a sack—"

"—no, a man in a black cloak!"

"A monster with red eyes!"

The Doctor laughed. It was such a peculiar thing to hear that they all slowly stopped bickering.

"Oh, I get it," he said, "it's not just Watson, it's  _all_  of you. You're all haunted by the ghosts of your childhood fears."

Holmes looked to the Doctor, eyes narrowed. "I believe I follow you," he said. "An abstract creature – one that changes its shape?"

"To say it changes its shape would be something of an oversimplification," the Doctor said. "It would be more accurate to say everything around it makes it change. It's called a  _dinarr_. They're terribly rare; created only by races with psychic tendencies, usually latent."

"Do you mean to say, Doctor," Watson said, "that this creature – this dinarr – is created by the people that fear it?"

"Well, think about it!" he returned, still with that inappropriate smile. "Latent psychic beings, children, so terrified of something that seems real enough to them. Enough children all over the world, all throughout history, thinking on the same general idea of a boogeyman, and it creates a temporal-spatial psychic field with enough energy to create it."

Holmes frowned. "And why, then, does it not work with other mythical beings? Unicorns, Santa Claus?"

The Doctor shook his head. "Unicorns and Santa were the blink of an eye compared to the boogeyman figure. Too brief, too specific. The boogeyman is every childhood fear, the summation of millions of years of the fears of low-level psychic fields."

Watson shifted uneasily in his spot. He still had his twin rifles slung over his back, a heavy but familiar weight. "And how does one kill such a being, Doctor?"

In response, the Doctor frowned. "That's where it gets complicated."

 

o :: o :: o

 

Watson sat alone in the exhibit on the history of folklore. He did not have his rifles, which he had been growing to like. All that illuminated his surroundings was the red floodlight.

"This is a terrible plan," Holmes said.

The Doctor frowned at him, looking away from the screen on which they were watching Watson from the safety of the security office.

"Have you got a better one?" the Doctor challenged.

"I don't like putting him in danger."

"You said yourself that he's perfectly capable."

"Yes, but intentionally using him as bait is a terrible idea. Especially if he's unarmed."

"Well, I would have used you, but apparently you grew up in some sort of magical Utopia where scary stories about boogeymen don't exist."

Holmes frowned. He'd never been told any stories as a child.

"Well, what about you, then?" he said. "Surely Gallifrey has a boogeyman."

The Doctor soured slightly, shifting uncomfortably in his chair.

"Trust me," he said, "you don't want a Toclafane in the picture. Even a facsimile of one."

Holmes's brow furrowed. "A Toclafane?" he repeated.

"The most terrible creature in the universe," said the Doctor, "who feeds on the younglings of Gallifrey. Legend says sunlight burned his skin, and he could only come out in—"

The lights suddenly flickered off. Even the screens with the surveillance video went dead.

"… pitch black."

"Holmes," came Watson's voice from the device on Holmes's hip, "I don't think it's working. I'm not feeling the same oppressive fear I felt before."

Slowly, Holmes unsheathed his katanas, and they sung appreciatively.

"Doctor," Holmes said slowly, "what exactly does a Toclafane do to the children?"

"He swallows them whole and lets them dissolve in his acid-filled stomach."

"Holmes, are you there?" Watson asked through the communicator. "Hello?"

Holmes hit the button on the side of the communicator. "Watson," he answered, as evenly and calmly as he could, "I think we have a bit of a situation."

"A situation?" came Watson's reply. "What do you mean?"

"Well, the entire police force is set up and ready to ambush Bloodybones as he appears where you are in the exhibit on folklore," Holmes answered slowly. "The problem is that the dinarr is not going to take the shape of Bloodybones, and he's in this room."

A scuffle, a clatter. "I'm on my way!"

_Click-click-click-click-click._

It was a guttural sound, a glottal sound, and it sounded right in the Doctor's ear.

It felt like so long ago, lifetimes ago, huddled in his room with his light orb. At night the red mountains of Gallifrey turned black, absorbing the light of the three moons. He would hug his light orb to his chest and tell himself that the Toclafane wouldn't find him if the light didn't go out.

"Doctor," Holmes said urgently, grabbing his shoulder. "Stand up. Head for the door."

But the Doctor didn't stand. There was another hand on his other shoulder, massive and cold, gripping him tightly.

"Doctor," Holmes repeated. "Doctor! Snap out of it!"

_Click-click-click-click-click._

So long ago and there it was, back to swallow him whole.

The room was illuminated suddenly by a blinding white glow. Acrid smoke filled the air. Holmes had produced a flare from the Doctor's pockets of unending depth and cracked it, lighting every corner.

It was bigger than Holmes expected, and twice as terrifying. Its size alone was so massive that it had to stand hunched in the comparatively small security room. Its skin was black and scaly and its eyes a pearly, sightless white. It reeled back at the brightness of the flare, holding its long arms in front of its face and wailing deafeningly.

Holmes cringed. Swords and flare in one hand, the Doctor's bowtie in the other, he pulled the Time Lord out by the collar and slammed the door, snatched his screwdriver out of his hand, and used it to lock it behind them.

 _Crash_  went the door as the Toclafane slammed all his weight against it. The wall itself buckled slightly, barely holdings its integrity.

Holmes racked his brain. He did not have enough data!

Watson came round the corner as the Doctor sunk down and gripped his hair. "Holmes!" he said, gripping his friend by the arm. "What's going on?"

"Gallifrey has a boogeyman, too," Holmes answered, as it  _crashed_  against the wall again. "And it's about to break out of its cage."

The police force scrambled into formation behind them, weapons out, primed, and aimed at the door as the Toclafane  _crashed_  into the wall a third time.

Watson picked up his rifles off the floor where he'd left them. "We will go down fighting if we must," he said, the old soldier's bravery shining on his face.

Holmes turned the situation over in his mind. He looked to the Doctor and gave him a scan with his own screwdriver, and he flipped it open to check the readings.

"The dinarr is on its last legs," Holmes said as he stared into the core of the screwdriver. "It's using the Doctor as a direct psychic feed to sustain itself."

Watson, long past the point of caring how he knew such things, just asked, "What do we do?"

"He can't hear or see us in this state," Holmes said, "which means he needs a more direct form of psychic communication."

Holmes crouched in front of the Doctor and put his hands on either side of his face. "Doctor," he said, "I'm sorry about this." He grabbed him and pulled him into a kiss.

 _Crash_  went the wall a final time, before everything became eerily still.

As the kiss held, the Doctor's eyes snapped open and began to glow a bright white. From somewhere, there was the sound of a shriek.

And then, there was nothing.

The Doctor collapsed in a heap. Holmes stood up and wiped his mouth on his sleeve distastefully.

Watson stared in absolute astonishment.

"You – did you just kiss him?"

"Direct psychic link," Holmes corrected him. "Not an entirely pleasant experience for me, I assure you. He tastes like custard for some reason. Come now, Watson, let's get him to the TARDIS."

 

o :: o :: o

 

"But how did you  _know?_ "

"The sonic screwdriver has a psychic interface," the Doctor said to Watson. "When he scans something with it, the screwdriver transmits relevant data directly into his mind."

Holmes rubbed his temples. He had an enormous headache.

"And he just happens to be able to transmit psychic information through a kiss?"

"It was a direct psychic link," Holmes insisted again as he tried to dull the pounding in his skull.

The Doctor studied him carefully, critically. "Yeah," he said, though he didn't sound entirely convinced. "It was a direct psychic link."

Watson threw up his hands in surrender. "I'm going to bed," he said, taking off into the back hallway of the TARDIS.

The Doctor was silent for a moment.

"I think he's jealous," the Doctor remarked.

"Obviously," Holmes replied.

Another moment of silence passed.

"You should tell him."

"I know."


	7. Edge of Night

Holmes was not by any stretch of the imagination an empathetic man. In general he did his best to avoid emotions altogether; he saw himself primarily as a computer, a deductive machine, and emotions were distracting and more often than not irrational. He'd never bothered to try to understand emotions past how they could be motivators for crime.

And even still, he could tell Watson was upset.

"Can we talk?"  _Knock-knock-knock_. "Watson, I know you're awake in there. I can hear the creaking of the bedsprings in time with your breathing." Silence.  _Knock-knock-knock_. "Watson? The door is locked and it only locks from the inside."

A sigh. The groaning of bedsprings. The door slid open. Watson stood silhouetted against the golden light from within, looking angry and impatient.

"What, Holmes?"

He took a deep breath.

"Watson, the idea of sexual congress holds no interest for me whatsoever."

The statement took him so off-guard that he was struck dumb for quite some time.

"It never has," Holmes said, sighing. "It's not that I find the act sickening or demeaning, it's that I find it completely insipid, pointless, and dull. I have my entire life. I have come to understand that it is a simple fact of who I am, as constant as my gender or the color of my skin."

"You…" But Watson could not finish the sentence. He was not sure what it was that Holmes had been hiding, but he did not dream that it could be this.

"And before you ask, yes, I have attempted the act before." Holmes sneered, as if recalling a rather distasteful memory. "I thought it only fair to test the hypothesis, since it was, at that juncture,  _just_  a hypothesis. But it held water. I received no gratification and have no desire to repeat the experiment."

Watson opened his mouth, then shut it again. "But you said…"

"And I  _meant_  it," Holmes insisted. "I have never been so honest or so candid in my life, Watson. I love you so much that I question my own sanity." For emphasis, he took both of Watson's hands in his own. "I share in your triumphs and wallow in your sorrows. When you proposed to Mary, I was almost blind from jealousy, but I loved you so much I held my tongue for your sake.

"But I beg of you not to confuse love with sex. I would put my life on the line for you, die for you, but I hold no sexual attraction to you simply because I am incapable of it."

Watson swallowed. He searched Holmes's face – whether to test the truth or deceit of his words, he did not know – along the sad lines fanning from the corners of his eyes and the sharp drop of his aquiline nose.

"Am I interrupting something?"

Where Watson gave a start of surprise, Holmes merely sighed. Their clasped hands dropped.

Watson cleared his throat. "Ah – no. No, you aren't. Hello, Doctor."

"Hello, boys," returned the Doctor, uncertainly. "Been about eight hours. That's how long humans usually sleep, right? Sweet dreams?"

Watson didn't answer. Holmes tucked his hands into his waistcoat.

"Good," said the Doctor. "Right, then. Got a doozy for us today, if you're up for it."

"Always," Holmes replied, who seemed all too glad to extricate himself from the conversation and head into the console room. The Doctor gave a last, worried took to Watson before following him.

"The planet is called Noxasia. It's about three hundred thousand light-years from earth, in a galaxy called Cerraline." The Doctor began circling the console wildly, flipping switches and hitting buttons in quick succession. Every now and then Holmes would lend a hand, cranking down a lever so the Doctor wouldn't have to circle back.

"Technically, Noxasia is a moon orbiting an immense planet called Luxasia. But the orbit of Noxasia around its planet and the planet around its star are such that Noxasia is permanently in Luxasia's shadow! A never-ending lunar eclipse!"

"How ghastly," Watson remarked.

"Oh, it's gone by all sorts of names – the Ice World, the Shadow World, the Planet of Endless Night – but for all that, the civilization is just brilliant!"

The TARDIS rocked to one side, its engines wailing.

"The Noxasians have triumphed over culture. The most incredible music, art, theatre, novels, poetry, it all comes from Noxasia! This came to a peak during their Golden Age, about twenty million years ago, when you lot were still grunting at each other and hurling sticks!"

As he spoke, the Doctor strode towards the door. Holmes and Watson were at his heels as he flung himself out of the TARDIS, arms spread. "Gentlemen," he said, "the Great Noxasia!"

The first thing Holmes noticed was how very dark it was. The sky was an icy blue color, dominated by an immense black void where a sun ought to be. The edges of the void were wreathed in flickering white light – presumably, the sun they couldn't see, hiding behind the host planet.

All along the horizon were the ghostly skeletons of trees, or things that looked very much like trees, whose gnarled, twisted limbs were shiny with a fine coat of ice. Off in the distance, an immense black castle loomed like a dagger. Silvery grass, slick and glinting with frost, caught the sparse light. In the distance, a mournful wind howled.

"It's  _bloody freezing_ ," Watson said.

"Yeah, you might want to nip into the wardrobe and grab a few coats," the Doctor returned.

Watson pushed his way back into the TARDIS. Holmes stood in admiring silence, watching the landscape with reverence.

"Did you tell him?" the Doctor asked.

Holmes folded his arms over his chest. "Yes," he said.

"And?"

"Yet to come up with a cogent response."

"Ah."

"What is that castle?"

The Doctor took a few steps forward, squinting at it. "At a guess, it may be Casselsiras. It's the capitol of its province, Salifax, which, I'm guessing, is where we landed."

"Then I know our destination."

When Watson returned with two large greatcoats, one black and fur-lined for Holmes, and the other brown and fleece-lined for himself, they set out across the icy field, crunching their way through the frost.

Casselsiras rose like a terrible ship on the horizon, its black spires scraping the sky. Tiny red windows flickered like a million eyes along the lengths of the towers, and as they grew closer, they could hear a faint music that grew louder as they approached. It was deep and sonorous and echoing through the valley.

"It sounds almost like a Gregorian chant," Holmes remarked as they climbed up a sharp incline.

"Up ahead!" Watson said.

The tall, terrible gates of Casselsiras were looming, wicked and black and covered in a shiny layer of ice. With a groan of rust and age, the gates swung open as they approached.

Twenty men, riding horses as black as pitch and cloaked to match, rode out from the gates, carrying spears and glinting silver shields with a falcon-shaped crest. Holmes, Watson and the Doctor watched as they passed.

"Funny," the Doctor said, "if I'm not mistaken, that's Noxasia battle regalia…"

They slipped through the gates before they closed. Casselsiras was built into a hillside, and its tall, crooked buildings seemed to stretch up to the stars, themselves. Made from dark wood and black shingles, and lit with the eerie red glow of lanterns, its aspect alone was unnerving enough. Coupled with the ever present mumbling of its citizens who puttered through the streets and mumbled, it struck Holmes as a terrible city straight from the imagination of Edgar Allan Poe.

"It's beautiful," Watson said, his words riding on a wisp of mist. "Terrifying, but beautiful."

A young boy in a raggedy coat came around the corner ringing a large brass bell. "Hear ye, hear ye, citizens of Casselsiras," he called, "the Regent-Lord Ferres calls all citizens to a meeting in the Eye of God Cathedral! Important news about the war with Essenia! All citizens urged to attend!"

"That's not right," the Doctor said lowly. "That's not right at all."

"What isn't right?" asked Watson.

A mob of citizens were milling southward now, muttering to each other, as they plodded slowly up the street which led around a bend.

"War with Essenia?" the Doctor said. "Casselsiras has never been at war with Essenia."

Holmes frowned. "I've heard you say, yourself, that time is fluid, Doctor."

"Well, yes,  _some_  of it," he riposted, "but throughout time and space, there are certain fixed points. Points that _have_  to happen. The Golden Age of Noxasia is one of those points. Two hundred years of prospering in the arts and peace throughout the land."

"So, logically, either you bungled the landing, or…?"

"Or something very not good is going on. Come along!"

The Doctor took off through the crowd, weaving through the mass of hooded, shuffling people. Holmes could not help but notice that the people of Noxasia had completely black eyes. Black iris, black sclera.

"Holmes…?"

It was Watson, studying him quietly.

"If I may," he said, "what is it about sex that makes you so disinterested?"

"You want to talk about this  _now?_ "

"Is there a more appropriate time to talk of such things?"

Holmes sighed. He had, at least, a fair point. "It isn't some specific detail, dear Watson, it's the entire package. I see no point in it. I do not want children, so its biological purpose is null. I have no physical desires, so its practical purpose follows suit."

Watson frowned and did not reply. They walked in silence towards the cathedral.

The Eye of God Cathedral was a massive behemoth of a building with black walls and pointed spires and long, slatted windows. The front doors were shut tightly, and at the top of the steps there was a podium. What must have been most of the population of Casselsiras gathered at the base of the steps.

Holmes found the Doctor and put a hand on his shoulder. "Are we even sure this is the Golden Age of Noxasia?" he asked. "Not for nothing, Doctor, but you haven't had the best track record with accurate landings."

"I'm going to ignore the jab and say yes, this is  _definitely_  the Golden Age of Noxasia, because the crier said it was Regent-Lord Ferres. Ferres I ruled through the heart of the Golden Age. QED, I'm always right."

"Except when you're wrong."

"Yes."

"Which is frequently."

"Shut up."

The procession of Regent-Lord Ferres I was announced with the clear ringing of silver trumpets. The cathedral doors swung open, and out walked the ghastliest creature Holmes or Watson had ever seen.

"Good Lord!" Holmes said.

Ferres I was a monstrously tall but rail-thin creature with long limbs, claws, and blackened skin which caught the light like obsidian. His eyes were long slits of gold, and were accentuated by the ornate golden crown that rested atop his oblong head. He was cloaked in deep violet garments and glinting jewelry rested around his neck and wrists.

"What – what on  _earth_  is that?" Watson asked.

"Steady on, boys, that's Regent-Lord Ferres I. The monarchy of Noxasia is literally a different species from the humanoids that make up most of its population."

"It's… it's ghastly," said Watson faintly.

"Easy, now. He's a he, not an it."

Ferres raised his claws, a motion to calm the muttering crowds. They muted eventually, and looked up to their Regent-Lord with worry.

"Our subjects," said Ferres I in a voice that seemed to rattle somehow, "the rumors you have heard are, We fear, true."

A rush of mumbling overtook the crowded square. Watson craned his neck to see better.

"Essenia has fallen off the edge of the world. Now dark things skitter up from the blackness; things that used to be our noble neighbors to the east. They are terrible and monstrous. They kill our livestock, they claw at the walls of Casselsiras; they have even taken the lives of innocents. They grow in number every day."

The Doctor narrowed his eyes. A group of hooded men wheeled out an immense cage covered in a velvet drape.

"We must ask Our subjects not to scream," Ferres said gravely, before he nodded to the men to remove the veil.

In an immense iron cage sat a shriveled, crooked, hunched thing, so like a man yet unmistakably inhuman. Chunks of its flesh seemed to be melted off its bones; one eye hung loose from its socket and its jaw was lopsided, as if one side had broken off. Several people nearest the steps of the Cathedral screamed despite Ferres's warning. It hissed reactively and thrashed in its cage, with such force that the massive thing rattled.

"We know not what they are, but for all intents and purposes, they can be referred to as Ghouls. Hear Us now, subjects, for We know that many of you had friends and family in Essenia. It is essential to remember that they were once Essenians, but are no longer. They may have the faces of your loved ones, but their souls have been blackened by the curse that felled the mighty kingdom.

"Show the Ghouls no mercy, for they will show you none. They have no sentience. Their only thought is to kill, to rend flesh from bone."

Watson leaned forward. "Doctor, have you ever seen anything like that before?"

But he wasn't there. Watson spun on a heel, looking around. Holmes tapped his shoulder and pointed to the steps of the Cathedral.

The Doctor flashed his psychic paper to the four hooded guards and wordlessly moved forward to inspect the creature. When it saw him it growled, lashing a hand out through the bars and very narrowly slashing through the Doctor's arm with it's blackened claws.

Holmes and Watson pushed their way through the crowd and hurried up the steps of the Cathedral to the Doctor's side. The hooded guards initially raised their swords, but the Doctor intervened:

"It's okay; they're with me. Holmes, Watson, come have a look."

Up close, the Ghoul – or whatever it was – had an even more hideous aspect. Watson could clearly see bits of bone and muscle through chunks of flesh that had seemingly melted away. Its eyes were eclipsed with a cloudy white, and its hair was nothing more than the occasional black string dangling off its scalp.

"What is it?" Watson asked. His dignities were offended by its aspect, but his medical expertise ached for more information.

"Whatever it is," said the Doctor, "it's barely even alive. No blood flow to speak of, and bits of it seem to be decomposing." He produced his screwdriver from his breast pocket, giving the monstrosity a quick scan. He flipped it out and faltered. "Whoa."

"What is it?" Holmes asked.

" _Whoa,_ " the Doctor repeated, backing up.

"What's wrong, Doctor?"

"This thing is – it's giving off radiation! Tons of it,  _buckets_  of it! Back up! Back up; everyone, back up!"

The Doctor was causing such a stir that guards were hurrying over, their swords out. Even the Regent-Lord Ferres I was drawn away from his speech by the ruckus.

"What is the meaning of this?" demanded the Regent-Lord, so loud that it shook the Cathedral.

The Doctor hurried over to him. "Your Highness, with no disrespect, you have to get that thing out of here this second! And anyone who's been in prolonged proximity to it needs to be washed off thoroughly!"

"Who are  _you?_ " Ferres demanded, somewhat disparagingly.

"I'm the Doctor," he answered, showing the psychic paper to the Regent-Lord and then circling it outward so the rest of the crowd could get a glimpse. "I'm here to help in any way I can, but you've got to lock that thing somewhere – underground, the bottom of a lake, in a cellar, anywhere that's far away from anything living!"

"It's perfectly safe in its cell," Ferres said, nonplussed.

"No, it isn't. It's radioactive. It—" (he frowned, as if remembering they were not familiar with the concept of radiation) "—it gives off this sort of energy. It's totally lethal; microscopic particles ripping right through you. It can kill you in days and you've  _got_  to lock it up  _right now_."

Regent-Lord Ferres shuffled forward on his long, spindly, twice-bent legs and reached down to take the psychic paper from the Doctor's hand. He studied it closely with those golden slits of eyes, then peered at him.

"A man of learning," he said, "from the Institute of Corrinthal. If this is so, then your word is to be trusted. Guards, take it to the cellar of the Cathedral."

The guards looked amongst each other, then quickly scooped up the cage and carried it into the Cathedral. Regent-Lord Ferres stepped forward and bent down to get a closer look at the three of them.

"Your presence here is most welcome, men of learning," he told them. "We are holding the lines of our province as best we can, but the Ghouls grow in number every day, and our soldiers are falling quickly."

"We'll help in whatever way we're able, Your Lordship," Holmes said with a bow. "If I may ask, when and how did this all start?"

Regent-Lord Ferres nodded in response to his bow, then gestured off to the right side of the Cathedral, where an immense, horse-drawn carriage was waiting. Together they passed through two columns of bowing footmen and climbed into it.

"Two weeks hence, the ground was shaken with a mighty earthquake," he said. "The sky, for a few hours, was lit up so brightly that We could not look at it for fear of going blind. It was coming from the east, from Essenia. We sent a caravan over to investigate, and when they returned, We could hardly believe their words."

"What did they say?" Watson asked.

"They told Us that Essenia was gone," he said, "that the eastern edge of the world had collapsed into the Great Black, and there was nothing left."

"With all due respect, Your Lordship," said Holmes, "this theory predicates on the idea that the world is flat rather than round."

The Doctor cleared his throat. "Well, they haven't quite gotten to that bit yet. If I may ask, Your Lordship, do you know where the Ghouls are coming from, exactly?"

"Our men report that they crawl up from the abyss like shadows," he said gravely, "clinging to the rocky edge. Like spiders."

Watson shivered involuntarily.

"If it's not too much to ask, Your Lordship," the Doctor said, "I think we should like to see it for ourselves."

 

o :: o :: o

 

And so Regent-Lord Ferres I had a caravan arranged for the Doctor and his two associates, for the men of learning to see the edge of the world.

It was led by Senior Captain Thalimas, a grizzled and silent man who carried an immense, decorated scythe on his back as a tribute to his many years in the Royal Army. He had a scar across his left eye and had been to the Edge, according to his lieutenant, Ivas, no less than six times since the great quaking of the ground.

"So you've actually seen it?" Holmes asked Ivas as they rode, each on their own glossy black stallions, across the frosty fields. "You've seen the edge of the world?"

"Aye, sirs, but only once," Ivas answered. Aside from Ivas and Senior Captain Thalimas, only three others rode with them, all of them guards who rode several yards behind. "It's as I said, sirs. The world just breaks off into the Great Black."

"I know it  _seems_  flat," the Doctor said, "but it's actually round. You're just very small in comparison and can't see the curvature. The world can't just  _end_."

Ivas shook his head. "You'll see for yourself, sirs. It's a great and terrible thing to see, the edge of the world, but there it is right before you. It's like you're staring into the Eye of God."

Holmes frowned deeply.

Ivas looked forward at his captain, seeming perplexed. "I think we're going the wrong way," he said suddenly. "Wait here, sirs." He kicked his horse and took off in a canter to catch up with his captain.

They rode a ways in silence. Watson stared into the glossy black mane of his stallion, worrying his lower lip.

"Something troubles you," Holmes said.

Watson looked up and sighed. "Yes. I just…" He faltered, hunting for the right word. "You said… back on the TARDIS, you said that you had sex." He looked up to make sure the Doctor (who had followed Ivas) was out of earshot. "I can't help but wonder… with who?"

Holmes smiled humorlessly.

"I initially attempted it with a woman, assuming that the biological imperative would be wont to kick in. Suffice to say there was absolutely no physiological reaction whatsoever."

Watson blinked at him, astonished. "None at all?"

"Absolutely none. I simply had no sexual attraction to her. I gave up for a while longer until I came to university…" Here, Holmes stopped himself. "Victor…"

"Victor?"

"Victor Trevor," he said, "the only man, save you, I have ever loved."

Watson felt the briefest flash of jealousy but quickly suppressed it.

"But even with him, it felt stiff and mechanical. There was, at least, a physiological reaction in that my pulse raced, my face flushed, and my mind spun, but I was unable to achieve sexual release, even with him."

"Not for – err – not for lack of trying, I hope?" For Watson, the subject was so delicate and awkward. Holmes, it seemed, felt no such stigma.

"Not at all. He tried his very best. I dare say he was more confused than anything else. I came to the conclusion that I simply lack a sexual drive."

Watson could not imagine such a state. He had never been by any means an overly sexual creature, but sex, to him, had always been one of the joys of monogamy. That Holmes simply lacked the ability and desire for it was, to him, flabbergasting.

"Slow! Slow!"

Holmes and Watson pulled their horses' reins tightly. The spindly, ice-coated trees were alive with moving shadows, loping from trunk to trunk to trunk, in and out of sight.

"They're coming," Ivas rasped. "They're coming! Battle positions!"

Holmes frowned, kicked his Horse, and galloped towards the Doctor. He reached into his pocket and pulled out—

"You  _kept the katana?_ " the Doctor demanded. "Holmes, that's stealing!"

"I'm surprised that you're hung up on the fact that I kept the katana and not how I managed to hide it in  _your_ pocket without you noticing. Watson!"

From the same pocket he pulled the twin rifles, tossing each one to Watson, who caught them easily.

"To your stations, men!" called the Senior Captain. "For Lord and Land! For victory!"

They came loping out of the forest on all fours, snarling and cutting through the frosty white grass. First five, then ten, then twenty. The guards and their spears held them at bay, but their numbers quickly began to grow at unmanageable rates.

Watson with his twin rifles fired cleanly through every Ghoul that came forward. Holmes and his katana made quick work of those that got too close. The Doctor, meanwhile, sat at the back of the battlefield smacking his sonic screwdriver in an attempt to fire off a distress signal that the people of Casselsiras could interpret.

In the chaos, between singing blades and Watson's gunfire, he did not notice anything had gone terribly awry until—

"Holmes!" Watson called. " _Holmes! No!_ "

The Doctor spun. Something knotted in his gut when he saw Holmes's katana, its blade and handle both soaked in blood, lying in the frosty grass. In the distance, two great black Ghouls gripped a thrashing, screaming Holmes by both arms, dragging him off into the distance. With each lope his screams grew more distant.

"Watson!" he called, before his voice faded over the hillside. Through the clattering of steel and the howling winter wind, the name echoed into obscurity.

The Ghouls were almost overwhelming, so dense that one of the guards was dead. More still were coming through the trees.

And Holmes was just a dark speck on the horizon.

 

o :: o :: o

 

A distant melody, plucked crudely on a harp. Or was it a violin? Staccato and haunting, a mournful minor key that brought him up slowly through the various levels of consciousness.

His arms—

He pulled sharply, but was met with resistance. They were bound to a chair with a length of rope and a belt. His feet, too, were tied to the legs of the chair.

He was in formal dress.

"You must drink slowly now."

He looked up with a jerk. The surroundings were dark, lit only by a single flickering candle on the table in front of him. There was a bowl before him, too large for a teacup but too small for a soup bowl, resting on a saucer. The air smelled like burning wood.

"Slowly, Mr. Red! Slowly, now, or you'll surely be sick!"

"Who is that?" Holmes demanded. "Who's there?"

"Slowly, slowly, slowly!"

 _Schink, schink, schink_ , the sound of a blade ripping through flesh and stoppered by wood. The table rattled with each noise. Holmes's heart began beating in his throat. He struggled with his bindings.

"Why won't you listen to me, Mr. Red?"  _Schink, schink, schink._  "I'm looking out for you is all!"

The stabbing stopped eventually. The table shook and creaked.

Something was crawling across the table towards him. Something with long black hair and a pale, bloodied face.

"Would Mr. Strange like some warm milk?" it asked with bloody, cracked lips.

"Who are you?" Holmes asked. "What am I doing here?"

"Of course he would! Of course he would!"

She crawled to the other side of the table. She was wearing a blue dress and shiny black shoes. When she came back she had a large porcelain kettle, looking rather like a very stout teapot. She tipped it over his cup, but nothing came out.

As she came closer, Holmes realized, with a steadily creeping horror, that it was a little girl attending to him.

"Mr. Strange would love some tea, thank you! And what about you, Mrs. Soft?"

The bloody little girl picked up the candle and brought it to the adjacent side of the table. To Holmes's abject horror, it illuminated the bloody, eviscerated corpse of a woman. The edges of her skin were turning black. The wounds started in her stomach and dragged upward to her neck, leaving red strips of viscera in their wake.

"Oh, God," Holmes muttered, pulling more furiously at the straps that bound his hands. They were too tight for him to escape.

"So nice to sit down after a hard day's work and have a nice cup of warm milk, isn't it, Mrs. Soft? So nice, so nice!"

As she filled the corpse's cup with imaginary milk, Holmes struggled with his leg bindings and racked his memory. One of the Ghouls carrying him here had knocked him out. Why had he been taken here at all? Why hadn't they just killed him?

And where the hell were Watson and the Doctor?

"What's wrong, Mr. Strange? Don't you like your milk?"

She came crawling across the table again. Her eyes were wide and blue and staring at him with the greatest concentration. Holmes knew there was no point in rationalizing with crazy, and so he said nothing.

"It's rude to refuse a warm beverage."

Holmes thrashed in his bonds.

As she pulled it closer, the blade of her knife dragged across the table towards him.


	8. Sound of Madness

He wanted to run after him. Damn the battle, damn the Ghouls. Holmes was in danger and everything else fell to the wayside.

Just as he took off in a sprint, the Doctor caught him by the wrist.

"Let me go!" Watson cried, thrashing against him.

"They're much faster than you," the Doctor hissed, grip unwavering. "They're half a mile away by now; we have to focus on our priorities."

"Holmes—" he began.

"—isn't going to be less gone if you chase after him now. Give me your gun."

"What?"

"Gun! Gimme! Now!"

He all but tore one of Watson's pistols from his hand and, as more Ghouls piled out of the forest, Watson felt the growing dread. For a moment, he was in some icy, hellish version of Afghanistan. He could smell the blood, see the bodies, feel Death racing toward him. They were such a small platoon, and the enemies were so many. For each savage he cut down, three more seemed to appear from the blackness of the forest. His wound ached. Bloody Maiwand, he was back again…

"Got it! Everyone take cover!"

The Doctor grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him back, but by the frantic, nervous look in his eye, the Doctor doubted Watson heard him.

"Really? Now? Your PTSD is flaring up  _now?_  Of course it's flaring up  _now_." The Doctor's voice suddenly changed. "Officer Watson, stand down! Take cover, I'm deploying explosives!"

Cannon fire? Even in the fog of his mind, he knew he had to get back. He grabbed two of the nearest soldiers by the back of their uniforms and dragged them behind a large outcrop of jagged white rocks.

The Doctor hurled the jerry-rigged weapon into the forest as far as he could. It sailed through the air, hanging in the chill for several long moments before the whole valley shook with an immense explosion. The curtain of ensuing dust and ash split open over the rock behind them, but nothing could protect them from the rumbling of the earth beneath them.

When it settled, Watson found himself struggling to breathe. Each scrap of air rode in on a wheeze, and his chest was so tight he thought it might collapse in on itself. He put a firm hand over his breast and felt the pounding of his frantic heart.

The Doctor skidded around the outcropping of rock and fell to his knees in front of him. His face was smudged with soot.

"Watson… Watson, can you hear me?"

Holmes was gone. Everyone was dying. His heart… good Lord, his heart was going to explode…

"Watson, I'm sorry about this, but there's no other way," the Doctor told him as he lifted both hands to place them on Watson's temples. "We don't have the time or medical expertise to deal with a psychological attack, so I need a direct line in."

Having the Doctor in his head was a bit like inflating a balloon inside a teapot. His presence was oppressive yet adaptable, never pushing too hard in any direction but still unnatural and invasive. The essence of him burned so brightly in his mind that the painful grip in his chest seemed trivial in comparison.

"Sorry," the Doctor said, "I'm sorry. Just hold on."

Maiwand, Watson thought. That bloody, terrible battle. The gods and men of Afghanistan were savages and so many good soldiers had died. All at once, every memory of it was at the forefront of his mind. In a single instant he could smell every blast of gunfire, hear every boom of the cannon, see every patient with a bloody hole ripped in his chest. The whole conflict was pressed into a dense and terrible point of memories and emotions.

"Easy does it," whispered the Doctor as the blinding presence descended on the angry bundle of experiences. "Just breathe, Watson."

The nervous energy rattled out of him. Watson sagged against the rock as his breath began to slow. All at once, he understood. War was bloody, violent hell, and it was okay to be haunted by it. But he could not let himself be controlled by his memories or his fear. It was like five years of burden had lifted from his mind and spirit.

He looked up at the Doctor, finding himself blind with grateful tears.

The Doctor smiled. "We're both of us old soldiers," he said. "I've just had the benefit of more time to think about it."

"Thank you," Watson said, the emotion in his voice threatening to break it.

"Come on," the Doctor said, rising and offering him a hand up. "We've got to find Holmes."

"Holmes—" The force of it hit him hard. "God, you're right." He looked out at the horizon over which his friend had disappeared and of course saw nothing. The force of the explosive had scarred the field they'd fought in, and the Ghouls had been turned into uneven piles of soot. The scattered soldiers who still remained were pulling themselves upright.

The Doctor was the first to hurry over, pulling up Ivas the young lieutenant by the scruff of his uniform. "Ivas, my boy," he said. "Would you mind telling me what is that way?" He pointed over the crest of the hill across which Holmes and his captors had vanished.

"How did you do that?" Ivas said in between ragged gasps of air. "How can such an explosion come from something so small?"

"It's all very complicated and scientific and I can't explain it accurately to someone whose society hasn't even discovered combustion yet. Listen, Ivas," he said, putting an arm around the skittish lieutenant's shoulder, "our friend has been taking by the Ghouls, and it's very important that we get him back. Now please, what's in that direction?"

Ivas looked towards the crest of the hill. "Most notably, Sir, the village of Rivadour."

"Take us there," Watson said as he came towards them. "Please. Fast as you can."

"But—" Ivas looked hopelessly towards the rest of his platoon. "My men—"

"Your commanding officer can take it from here. Ivas, he's only here because of me." The Doctor looked earnestly into the young man's face as he spoke. "It's my fault he's in danger, and I can't let anything happen to him."

Ivas gave a last look to his squadron, who were commiserating and taking note of their dead. Then he gave a great sigh.

"Get the horses," Ivas said, motioning to the group of glossy stallions who'd huddled far away from the battle in terror. "I'll join you shortly."

 

o :: o :: o

 

Within twenty minutes the three of them were riding across the frostbitten fields of white grass, their horses hooves crunching through the ice. They kept pace at a swift canter, which was all they could tolerate with the constant, biting chill of the breeze.

It wasn't until the end of the hour that they came upon the edge of the world.

Watson knew, in the same way he knew that it was the earth which revolved around the sun and not the other way around, that the world was round. But as they came over the crest of a hill and found themselves almost immediately at the precipice of a cliff, he could not help but admit that he understood why the Noxasians had thought that the edge of the world had fallen off. That was what it looked like.

"Hold, hold," Ivas said, lifting one hand in a motion for them to slow. Though Watson and the Doctor both stared in slack-jawed astonishment, neither of them spoke for a very long time.

"But how is that possible?" the Doctor wondered aloud eventually, nudging his horse closer to the edge and peering over into the endless stretch of sky. "That's not possible. The world can't just  _end_ ; that's not how gravity works!"

"But there you are, Doctor," Ivas said gravely, "standing at the edge of the world."

"Perhaps it just formed to the shape of a discus, by the same happenstance that the earth formed into a sphere," Watson suggested.

"Objects with mass are attracted to other objects with mass, and yes, it's possible for early proto-planets to take on a sort of oblong shape, but never to this degree. And after this long, it would have settled into a spherical shape on its own with earthquakes. There's no such thing as the edge of the world."

"Then what are we looking at?" asked Watson.

The Doctor frowned and gave his surroundings a quick scan with his screwdriver.

"I don't know," he admitted.

Watson shook his head. "We should get a move on. How far to Rivadour, Ivas?"

"Not far. Follow the edge west and you'll run into the half that didn't fall off into the Great Black."

 

o :: o :: o

 

It was some time further before they all three of them saw the still-smoking remains of a city teetering precariously on the edge of the world. The Doctor was the first to dismount, Watson behind him. Ivas was not so quick to follow.

"They say this place has become cursed," Ivas said. "I've heard the stories."

"Stories?" the Doctor asked. "What stories?"

"Nonsense, I'm sure," Ivas replied quickly. "But some soldiers who've been out this far to inspect the damage and search for survivors have said they've seen things."

"Such as?" Watson prodded.

Ivas didn't answer immediately. He was sitting, stiff and awkward, in his saddle.

"They said that those who survived the earthquake went mad," he said. "That their wits had been snatched and all that was left was the shadow of their humanity."

The Doctor frowned. "We wouldn't ask you to go any further, Ivas. You've done more than enough coming this far."

Ivas hesitated for several long moments before he eventually swung off his horse. "No," he said, "you're foreigners who don't know your way around this city. If nothing else, I can be of some use to you in finding your way."

"Good man," Watson said, thumping Ivas appreciatively on the shoulder. "You do your squadron proud."

"This is the part where it gets dangerous," the Doctor said. "Well, apparently. We've got a lot of ground to cover and only three of us, so Ivas, Watson, you two stick together and head west. I'll search the east half. If you run into any trouble, Watson, use this."

The Doctor tossed Watson a cell phone. Watson peered at it carefully, and then flipped it open experimentally.

"Some sort of communicator, I gather. Which button summons you?"

"Blimey, it's easy to forget you're from the Victorian Era," the Doctor said. "Just hit the one button. I'm on speed dial. Hold it against your face and we'll be able to talk. Close it when you're done. Right, on you get!"

The Doctor scurried off into what looked like the remains of a chapel. Watson looked sideways at Ivas, who was shifting nervously in his spot.

"Easy does it, lad," Watson said. "We'll make it through this."

"Who is that man, anyway?" Ivas asked as they started the trek through what was left of the town square. "He's so strange. All of you are."

"We're not from around here," Watson said vaguely.

"Will he be able to stop the Ghouls?"

Watson hesitated. "If there's anyone in this universe who can, it is most certainly the Doctor. But nothing comes without recompense."

Ivas nodded solemnly, with the knowledge of a veteran.

They walked for a while in silence until they came to a row of townhouses. The wood was blackened and cracked, as if it survived a fire, and from somewhere Watson could hear—

"Is that music?"

It was cracking and popping as if it were being played on a gramophone of suspicious quality, and the melody, otherwise a cheerful and jaunty tune, was warped and off-pitch, giving it a quality closer to haunting than happy.

"Yes," Ivas said warily, drawing his sword. "It's the Imperial March."

Watson's one remaining rifle weighed heavily in his hand. They followed it to one particular townhouse, which was not entirely unlike all the rest. Through the doorway it was dark as pitch, illuminated only by a single, dust-filled shaft of starlight. Watson saw the remains of a family home, gutted from fire. There were blackened children's toys scattered through the front hall, stuffed bears and stacking blocks and dolls. The music grew stronger as they went deeper.

The two of them followed it, weapons drawn, up a flight of rickety stairs and into a wide bedroom. Watson immediately detected the overwhelming, nauseating scent of blood, and when Ivas kicked the door open to let the light shine in, he saw, at the end of a table—

" _Holmes!_ "

His rifle clattered to the floor. He raced past the gutted corpses tied to their chairs and to his side.

At first inspection, he was pale – paler than normal, at least – and when he got closer, he saw, to his horror, a bloody gash torn into his stomach.

"Holmes," Watson wheezed, "God, no, please, not now…"

His fingers shook as they searched for Holmes's pulse.

"He's alive!" he rasped, tearing at the bonds around his wrists. "Mother of God, he's alive! Holmes! Wake up! Stay with me!" He patted the side of his face with one hand and fumbled for his cell phone with the other.

"Watson," Ivas said lowly.

"Holmes, answer me! Fight it and hold on; I'm going to get you out of here!" He hunted for the one button and hit it. A moment later, with the speaker to his ear, he heard a click.

"Watson?"

"I've found him! He's badly wounded but he's alive!"

" _Watson!_ " Ivas said, before he was cut off by a shriek.

"Ivas!"

 _Schink, schink, schink_.

"You weren't invited! I didn't invite you! Mummy, Daddy!"

Watson could only stand and watch as a tiny wisp of a girl, barely a day over eight by his estimation, ruthlessly gutted the young soldier. Blood splattered out in arcs of shiny red, coating the front of her dress and the walls.

He felt for his gun, and a tremor of dread raced through him when he realized he'd dropped it by the door.

The girl turned her head towards him. Half her face was red with Ivas's blood.

"Watson?" came the Doctor's voice, distantly, from the phone. "Watson, where are you?" Then the buzzing of his screwdriver.

"More uninvited guests!" the little girl shrieked. " _Mummy!_ "

Watson scrambled to pick up a piece of debris – part of what used to be the rafters, he wagered – and held it out like a sword. The brittle black wood crumbled beneath his fingertips.

Two Ghouls, one significantly larger than the other, came loping out of the darkness, their terrible teeth gnashing and eyes glinting. It was then Watson came to a rather abrupt and unnerving realization.

He did not have time to dwell on it. The Ghouls launched at him with a cry, but Watson was ready, swinging the board. A strike here, a bite there, torn flesh, splintered bone. He was not as formidable in melee as he was with a rifle, but he was capable if the situation demanded it. He'd managed to crack his makeshift weapon against the neck of the smaller Ghoul until just he and the larger one remained, circling each other like feral dogs.

And then, abruptly, a katana sailed past the side of his head and embedded itself in the Ghoul's neck. The Ghoul swayed for a moment and then collapsed.

Watson turned. Holmes was standing, gripping his stomach and smiling as if to assure Watson that he wasn't in any agony.

"Hello, dear boy," Holmes rasped through a mouthful of blood. "Glad to see you're still fighting fit."

"Holmes," Watson breathed, hurrying over to attend to him. "You shouldn't have stood."

"Behind you—!"

The bloody little girl came loping across the table with a shriek. Reacting quickly, Watson grabbed the edge and heaved it over. She went flying into the wall, and the table followed her, making a sickening crunching sound.

Before Watson had time to regret his actions, Holmes groaned and crumpled to the floor. He was quick to stoop down next to him.

"Never before have I been so acutely reminded of my mortality," he wheezed.

"Don't speak like that. You'll be fine."

"Holmes! Watson!" The voice was coming from below. The Doctor scrambled loudly up the set of stairs and burst into the room, nearly tripping over the body of the larger ghoul, who was still impaled by Holmes's katana.

"I need equipment, Doctor," Watson barked, " _now_. Is there a medical bay in the TARDIS?"

"Doctor, the Ghouls are the degenerated citizens of this town," Holmes said.

"Really? Oh, blimey, that makes sense, doesn't it?" The Doctor pushed a hand through his hair, his mind whirling behind his clear hazel eyes.

"Doctor!" Watson said shrilly. "TARDIS! Now!"

"Right! Yes, okay! Come on, we'll walk him back to the horses!"

On the way out, Watson snatched up his rifle and Holmes's katana, and together they half-carried a cringing, groaning Holmes down into the lobby and out the door.

"Ivas died," Watson whispered.

"I saw," the Doctor replied. "After we figure this out, we'll send someone for his body."

"How are they changing? She called those Ghouls mummy and daddy."

The Doctor frowned. "Don't know yet. I'll get back to you."

"Radiation, you said," Holmes rasped. "Tiny particles ripping through you."

"Holmes, don't talk."

"That's—that's it! Holmes, you're  _brilliant!_  Radiation toxicity! Not Rontgen radiation, oh no, this is nasty, not native to this galaxy. But that means—"

"For God's sake, Doctor, theorize later!" Watson barked. "Holmes needs medical attention!"

"We'll get him out of Rivadour and I'll head back on my own for the TARDIS," he said, "pop back and pick you both up soon as I can. Stay put and don't get into any trouble!"

 

o :: o :: o

 

The TARDIS, as it turned out, had a fully-stocked medical wing with a remarkable device in the shape of a table with a lighted surface. All Watson had to do was carefully clean the stab wounds and leave Holmes atop it to recuperate. It was a slow process, but still he could watch at the skin gradually stitched itself back together.

"You don't have to stay," Holmes whispered.

Watson smiled wearily at him. He'd taken a chair up astride the table.

"Yes, I do."

"Watson…"

He moved his hand off the table and Watson took it earnestly. Their fingers interlaced.

"My dearest Boswell, faithful to the last." He was weak, but still he gripped Watson's hand with all the strength he could muster. "What in my life have I ever done to deserve someone like you at my side?"

Watson looked down at him, searchingly, as if looking for an answer to a question he couldn't quite articulate.

"I feel it's worth mentioning…" Watson began. "That is to say, I think I ought to tell you… I just wanted to say that I…"

Holmes watched him with patient, steady grey eyes.

"I don't… I can't claim to understand why… why you are the way you are, why you seem to have no sexuality," he said, slowly. "I don't know if it's pathological or not. But when I saw you there – bound, bleeding, unconscious – I realized that it didn't matter."

He leaned forward, resting his forehead on Holmes's, eyes half-shut.

"I love you," Watson said.

Holmes's grip on his hand tightened.

"How is it," he said, "that you can be exactly what I need, exactly when I need it, every time without fail?"

"I suppose you're just lucky," Watson said, smiling. Holmes laughed hoarsely, and then leaned up to close the gap between them with a kiss. It was warm and unhurried, a deliberate rhythm of their lips, joined by soft breathing and tightly clasped hands. Holmes wondered that if for a moment the universe itself slowed down around them.

"Ew. Er, I mean, oh, how cute."

Watson looked up. The Doctor was fidgeting in the door leading out to the hallway.

"Sorry," he said, "human mating rituals. A little bit gross."

Straining to maintain his patience, Watson said, "What do you want, Doctor?"

"I've got good news and bad news," the Doctor answered. "Which do you want to hear?"

"Always hear the good news first," Holmes advised Watson. "Softens the blow of the bad news."

Frowning, Watson said, "All right, what's the good news?"

"I've figured it all out. Or, nearly all of it. I know what's causing the Ghouls, the madness, and the bloody great edge of the world."

The table on which Holmes was laying ceased to glow, and the humming stopped. Fully healed, Holmes sat upright and pressed experimentally on the fresh skin.

"And the bad news?" asked Watson, though he wasn't sure he wanted to hear it.

"I think you should have a look for yourself."

The three of them returned to the console room. The door was wide open, and as they congregated around it, they saw Noxasia, the planet, suspended in space. Burned into the side of it was a crater so immense that a fourth of the planet must have been taken with it.

"Good Lord," Watson said.

"A crater  _so big_  that if you stand at the edge, you can literally see nothing but sky. I'd say that could be easily mistaken for the edge of the world, wouldn't you?"

"What could cause a crater so large?" asked Holmes, looking across at the Doctor.

"That's what I asked. If it were a meteor, something that could create a crater that big would have annihilated the planet and all life on it. Which then got me thinking –  _the radiation_. Like you pointed out, Holmes."

Holmes and Watson watched as the Doctor scurried back toward the console and began flipping levers in great succession. The TARDIS doors snapped shut.

"The largest weapon ever created in the history of warfare is called the Radiation Cannon. It fires a super-concentrated beam of gamma radiation so massive that it – well, that it could make a crater like that, for starters."

"Who would need such a vile weapon?" Watson asked, frowning.

"Plenty of people use it. Even humans, for a while. They eventually get outlawed by the Shadow Proclamation, after they're declared too powerful and too deadly for anyone to be able to manipulate."

"Then how do we know who's using this one?"

"Good question!" He cranked down a large lever and the TARDIS rocked to one side, its engines starting to oscillate. "You see, I took the liberty of scanning the space around Noxasia, and I just so happened to find a ship!"

"I presume that is where we're going," Holmes said.

"Of course it is!"

The engines stopped. The Doctor bustled back up to the door and threw them open a second time.

They were in the middle of a very large metal hallway. An entire army with large guns pointed and primed at them stood ready.

"Oh, dear," said the Doctor.

"By order of Emperor Nimaidi, we are placing you, the Doctor and his accomplices, under arrest. Lay down any weapons you carry and step out of the TARDIS," said one of the men at the front. They were all wearing full body armor that covered every inch of skin in thick, glossy black leather.

Holmes looked around the crowd, guessing their numbers to be at least ten thousand strong. He then looked to the Doctor. "What did you do?" he asked accusatorily.

"I'm not really sure," the Doctor answered. "A time traveller's life is sort of funny like that. Things don't always happen in quite the right order."

"Are you sure this is the right ship?" Watson asked.

"Yeah. Pretty sure."

"So a massive police force that wants to arrest you blew off a fourth of a planet for no apparent reason?" Holmes added querulously.

"It's all very timey-wimey," the Doctor agreed.

" _Lay down your weapons and step out of the TARDIS!_ " repeated the man in front.

"How do they know it's a TARDIS?" Watson wondered. "I thought Holmes said you were the last of your kind."

"I bet you bungled something up," Holmes said sourly. "I bet  _you_  end up blowing off the chunk of Noxasia in the past or something, and this is a sting operation to arrest you for it."

The Doctor looked over at him as if seriously considering his words. "No," he said after a minute, "no, I wouldn't use a Radiation Cannon. That's low, even for me."

" _Why aren't you listening to me?_ " demanded the increasingly impatient officer.

"Maybe you just parked the TARDIS in the wrong spot," Watson suggested.

"What is it with you two and thinking I don't know how to fly my own ship?"

"In our defense, Doctor," Holmes said, "your track record is less than sterling."

"Well, I'd like to see  _you_  try it."

"I have, actually. Remember? A'amka?"

"Shut up."

" _Pay attention!_ "

"Look," Watson sighed, "he's going to keep shouting. We should do something about this."

"Right, right," the Doctor said, "back into the TARDIS. We'll talk to them on slightly more equal footing.

" _Hey!_ "

They closed the doors. There came from beyond a rapid pinging sound, like small hailstones bouncing off glass.

The Doctor ambled up to the view-screen and began to tap at the attached keypad. "An army this big," he said as he typed, "bound to have some sort of internal channel. There we go. Hello, there!"

The screen fizzled to life, showing a shadowy image backlit by a white light.

"Ah, Doctor," the figure purred. "I was wondering how long it would be till we spoke again."

"Again?" the Doctor said. "My goodness, this  _is_  timey-wimey, isn't it?"

"We have not yet had the pleasure," Holmes said over the Doctor's shoulder. "And as much as I'm sure you're a very good villain, you'll have to excuse our ignorance on the grounds that we have yet to meet you."

The figure chuckled. "All in good time, then," he said. His voice somehow sounded synthetic and mechanical.

"Was it you who fired that Radiation Cannon into Noxasia?" the Doctor asked.

"Yes."

He narrowed his eyes. "Why?"

"Because I knew  _you'd_  be here to try to fix it."

"He knows you," Watson volunteered.

"There are eighty million people down there," the Doctor said, voice rising. "You mean to tell me that you almost halved the population just to get my attention? I've got a phone, you know!"

"And yet somehow, I don't think it would have been nearly as effective," he answered. "The best way to get the Doctor's attention is to bring death in your wake. You flock to it like a moth to flame."

The Doctor's frown deepened. "I'm going to have to stop you," he warned. "I saw your weapon readouts. You've still got your cannon primed on what's left of the planet."

"Oh, Doctor," the figure chuckled, "I look forward to it."

The screen went dead. A few moments of tense silence passed.

"Boys," the Doctor said slowly, "I need to borrow you for a moment."

 

o :: o :: o

 

Back in Casselsiras, the crier had a new message to yell as he rung his bell.

"All citizens to the Eye of God Cathedral! King Ferres I is declaring a state of emergency! All citizens to the Eye of God Cathedral!"

The cathedral was immense, but piling every single citizen into its main hall proved to be difficult. Men, women and children were crowded together on the ground floor, huddled together on pews and on the floor. The roaring murmur echoed off the vaulted ceiling until it was twenty times louder than the already deafening overlap of sound.

In the highest mezzanine overlooking the floor, King Ferres I, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson stood at the edge.

"I hope your Doctor knows what he's doing," King Ferres said in that strange, gravelly voice. "My people are not sheep and I do not like herding them as such."

"He very rarely knows what he's doing," Holmes returned idly. "But by the same coin, he very rarely lets us down when he is needed."

"This radiation you spoke of," King Ferres said, turning towards Holmes properly, "you said it was what was turning the survivors into Ghouls."

Holmes nodded.

"Then why has it not affected my citizens?"

"Because the walls of Casselsiras are made from four-foot-thick stone," Holmes answered. "Gamma radiation, the Doctor explained to me, can penetrate most matter, but only up to a certain point. The stone walls were just enough to keep the majority of your citizens safe."

"But we have sent out guards," King Ferres said.

"They were not out long enough to contract any symptoms," Holmes said. "But the Doctor insisted that the blast of radiation that would be coming now would be much more immense. The only place safe is in the Cathedral for now."

There was then a crash so loud that the entire castle shook. Women screamed. Holmes and Watson rushed to the rose window at the other end of the mezzanine and looked out at the sky. An immense silver ship was looming across the horizon. A large dish on its underbelly was starting to glow bright green.

"Look there!" Watson said, pointing.

There zoomed the TARDIS, spinning wildly around the dish, which soon sputtered out and ceased glowing. Holmes laughed heartily and thumped Watson on the back as the TARDIS circled back around and moved up to the side of the ship.

Fires erupted suddenly from various locations along the shiny metal surface of the ship. It began to shake and then, in a rush of light, explode into blinding white.

"My word," breathed King Ferrest I, who pressed a long, clawed hand over his breast.

"Give them hell, Doctor!" Holmes cried.

The TARDIS strained to one side for a moment, and before the explosion of white light could reach the surface of the planet, the entire ship was slingshotted away, thrown off into the milky rags of twilight.

"He did it," Watson marveled, scarcely daring to believe it. "One man against an army, and he brought them down."

"Impressed?" Holmes asked.

"Terrified," Watson returned.

 

o :: o :: o

 

"I gave them time to evacuate, if they were quick about it," was the first thing the Doctor said to them when they came back aboard the TARDIS not long afterwards. "As for our shadowy friend, he wasn't on the ship at all. Somehow I doubt we've seen the last of him."

Watson tucked his hands into the pockets of his waistcoat as Holmes crossed the console room to throw himself into the chair.

"How is everyone in Casselsiras?" the Doctor asked when neither of them spoke.

"Well enough," Holmes said. "We managed to get most of them into the Cathedral in time. And for those that weren't, well… I saw Watson drop off a few medications to the healers when he thought I wasn't looking."

The Doctor winked at Watson. "A physician till the last, eh?"

"I did take an oath," Watson reminded him.

"Good on you, good on you," the Doctor said, pulling Watson into a hug too quickly for him to give any sort of protest. "Look at you two! My boys. My Victorian boys. How did I ever get along without you?"

"It's a mystery," Holmes said. "One which, for once, I do not intend to unravel."

"All right, you two nip on into the kitchen and get yourself a nice meal, off you pop. I have a bit of repair work to do after flinging that ship into deep space."

"Doctor," Watson began.

"Yes?"

Watson studied him for a moment, wondering where to begin. Should he tell the Doctor how he felt, that he had seen what the Doctor was capable of, and that it terrified him? Should he ask him what he meant when the Doctor said that he, like Watson, was an old soldier? Should he ask whether or not these points connected?

He wanted to know about Gallifrey. He wanted some assurance that this brilliant, terrible man had some sort of leash, whether it be in his own ability or in his morals.

But Watson didn't say any of that.

"Nothing," he said, "never mind."

And that was that.


	9. Fire and Stone

Watson was beginning to notice things.

He was, for example, starting to become unusually familiar with the subtle lines that ran along the length of Holmes's forearms, which he'd taken to studying whenever his sleeves were rolled up. He was also peculiarly fascinated with how his hair looked when it was streaked with sweat and glistening, and the way the tendons of his neck cast shadows.

Even things he'd always admired about Holmes were suddenly more interesting. The light in his eyes – that glimmer of genius with the tincture of madness that shone when he was hot on the scent of something fascinating enough to entice that brilliant mind. The long, thin hands, a musician's hands, and how gracefully they worked.

His scent was torture. That faint aroma of cigarettes and tea made his blood run hotter than the fires of hell. Now that the door was open, now that Holmes had admitted his feelings and Watson could reciprocate, the stolen kisses – while delicious and a decidedly excellent addition to their relationship – did not satiate him, and all he could think about was pinning Holmes against a wall and doing any number of unspeakable things to him.

But he didn't, because that wasn't something Holmes could enjoy.

Watson was not a romantic. That had been beaten out of him in Afghanistan. Even his relationship with Mary, while based in love, had come down to practicality. But he found Holmes strange and fascinating, and Watson wanted to give him everything just to see what he would do with it.

He should have thought it through more thoroughly when Holmes told him he was asexual.

 

o :: o :: o

 

"Watson, my boy!" the Doctor said as he came into the TARDIS console room. "What kept you?"

"I was sleeping," he answered before adding, "for eight hours."

"Oh. Were you? How time flies."

Holmes, reclined in the chair, said, "In the Doctor's defense, he hardly notices when the TARDIS catches on fire." He rose and swept towards Watson, pulling him easily into his arms and drawing him into a long, unhurried kiss. Watson's mind instantly filled with thoughts of dragging him back to his bedroom and having his way with him.

But rather than doing so, when they pulled away, all he did was smile.

"I will say, Watson, that I'm quite happy with my newfound ability to greet you like this," Holmes said with a roguish smile that did nothing to quell Watson's growing desire to rip off his clothes.

"Yes," Watson said, "quite."

"Human courtship rituals," the Doctor said, "gross."

"And I suppose Time Lords are far superior in their mating?" Holmes inquired mildly, his hand finding Watson's. It was a completely natural expression of affection, and it made Watson's heart race uncomfortably fast.

"Well, I mean, they're more or less the same, but  _still_. You're  _humans_ , you know? You're all squishy and oogly."

"Elegantly stated, Doctor."

"So, I was thinking! I'd like to go somewhere in human history I've never been before, which is saying quite a lot, actually, because I've seen most of the bits in your recorded history."

"Where's that, then?" asked Watson.

"The Pleistocene period!" he answered, wholly too excited, as he began circling the console and flipping up levers. "Two million years before your time, to meet the progenitors of your entire race,  _Homo habilis_."

"I've made some study of evolutionary biology, Doctor," Holmes said, "and I don't recall anything by that name."

"Well, you wouldn't.  _Homo habilis_  isn't even discovered until the 1960s." He pulled down a large handle at the edge of the console. "But they were, notably, the first ancestors of the modern  _Homo sapien sapien_  to use tools and basic language skills. Can you imagine! All that knowledge, all that innovation, exploding out of nowhere because of the sudden increased cranial development!"

The TARDIS engines began to wail, and they were all three thrown forward as they rocked through time and space.

"I'll admit that it does interest me," Holmes said as he crossed the console room to pick up his katana, in its sheathe, and attach it to his belt.

"Oy!" the Doctor interjected, "what are you bringing that for?"

"Come now, Doctor. We've been travelling long enough to know there's always a pattern to your little adventures." Once his katana was secured, he grabbed Watson's rifle and tossed it over to him. "There is nary a trip without some sense of danger."

The Doctor opened his mouth as if to protest, but shut it a moment later. "Well… that is to say… it isn't  _always_ dangerous."

"No, Doctor, it's always dangerous," Watson said. "So, shall we?"

He looked almost as if his pride was slightly wounded, but still the Doctor headed with them towards the TARDIS door.

Outside the air was hot and thick with humidity. They had landed, it seemed, in the middle of a rainforest with a thick green canopy which let only the barest slivers of sunlight through to the underbrush. All around them rang the sounds of the forest: chirping, chittering, wailing and shrieking from every direction.

"Lord, it's hot," Watson said, and both he and Holmes quickly discarded their overcoats in the TARDIS. Stripped down to their waistcoats, they move further into the jungle.

"Smell that air!" the Doctor said, grinning widely as the three of them set out in a brisk walk. "All that nitrogen and oxygen; not even the slightest hint of carbon monoxide! The good old days!"

Watson gave Holmes a withering look. "Do you understand what he's saying?"

"Rarely," Holmes replied with a laugh, slipping his arm into Watson's. "Look around, my good man! Two million years before our time; can you believe it?"

He looked out through the trees with a smile. "The sense of awe never quite leaves."

There came from behind them a low, rumbling roar. Watson instinctively fingered the rifle at his hip, and he heard Holmes click his katana the first inch out of its sheathe.

"What was it you said about not always being dangerous?" Holmes said, perhaps a bit too glib for the situation.

"Lucky chance," the Doctor said.

They turned. Crouched just below the line of the rough underbrush was a massive, jaguar-like cat, its tail swaying slowly.

"Run!"

They took off further into the forest. The enormous cat loped out of the foliage and followed them on short, powerful legs. With each glance back, Watson could see that it was gaining on them. He fired back at it, and while the red pulses of light would graze it occasionally and elicit a mighty roar, it kept coming.

A spear went suddenly whizzing past his ear, causing Watson to fumble and lose his footing. Scarcely after he gained his bearings, Holmes was at his side, helping him upright. Three more spears went flying – sharp flint stone tied crudely onto knotted branches – many of them embedding in the flesh of the cat. By the third, the mighty beast collapsed.

The Doctor was the first to speak: "Blimey!"

Three men, large, furred and naked, came forward from the opposite direction. One of them was carrying a spear. The two smaller men were eyeing the cat, while the largest was studying the Doctor with immense interest.

"Hello, there!" the Doctor said with a delirious laugh.

The larger man used the spear he was carrying to prod the Doctor in the ribs.

"Our cat," he said gruffly.

"What? Oh! Oh, yes, help yourself. By all means. Blimey, you're just how I pictured you!"

The large man squinted at the Doctor as if he wasn't quite sure what he was saying. "Talk fast," he said

"Right.  _Right_. Sorry. The TARDIS translational circuit is a bit helpless with protolanguages, I'm afraid. Simply not enough vocabulary to convert, and this really isn't helping you at all, is it?"

Watson pulled himself to his feet with Holmes's help. The large male with the spear, meanwhile, just continued staring at the Doctor in silence.

"Let's start over. Hello! I'm the Doctor."

"Doctor." The man nodded, as if getting into familiar territory. "Woman job, yes."

"What? Well—"

"Small like woman. Woman job, yes."

The Doctor seemed a bit off-put. "I'm taller than you," he said.

"Tall, yes. Thin also. Woman, yes."

Holmes thumped the Doctor on the back. "Well, he's got you all sorted, doesn't he?"

The man leaned in to inspect Holmes. "Also woman."

Where the Doctor had been disconcerted, Holmes was outright offended. "I beg your pardon!"

"Thin like woman." He nodded again.

"I suppose you think Watson's a woman, too?"

The man followed Holmes's gesturing hand to Watson. He looked him over for a moment, and then shook his head.

"No. Man. Tall, wide. Man, yes."

Watson managed to cover his laughter with a rather loud cough.

Meanwhile, the man with the spear was leaning forward and pulling at Holmes's waistcoat to feel and inspect it more closely. "Never seen fur," he said. "Where tribe?"

"Just us," the Doctor said. "We're the tribe."

The man considered this for a moment. Then he decisively shook his head. "Too small. Too few women. Come with Og. Og tribe much bigger."

"So you're name's Og, then?" asked the Doctor with a smile. "How charmingly typical."

"Strange talk," Og said. "Come."

The other two were now hauling up the massive cat by its paws and were the first to follow Og through a very precise path through the woods.

Watson could not help but smile at the look of utter indignation that refused to leave Holmes's face.

"For the record," Watson said, "I think you'd make a  _splendid_  woman."

"Watson, so help me—"

At that moment, they broke out of the edge of the forest and onto a vast, rolling savannah that was spotted with shrubs and wide, gnarled trees. A few dozen meters off, a shallow river cut across a stretch of flat rocks, laughing and babbling as it ran. A small group of people, no more than ten in all, sat at its edge, with a few more adventurous children playing in the water.

"Is that your tribe, Og?" the Doctor asked, and Og nodded. In response, the Doctor beamed widely. "Look at that, boys! An honest-to-God Pleistocene  _Homo habilis_  tribe! Isn't it just what you'd imagine?"

"Not really," Watson admitted.

"It's hard to imagine something of which you have no awareness," Holmes reminded him.

The Doctor huffed. "You're looking at the forerunners of your race!" he told them urgently. "Everyone you know and could know comes from them! Have some awe!"

Holmes just patted the Doctor on the back as they followed Og and the other two to the side of the river. When the scattered group saw the immense cat in tow, many of them hooted and waved their arms in celebration. But soon they set to the task of skinning the beast and cutting up the meat.

The Doctor was content to observe – and, occasionally, remark upon – their methods and habits. Holmes and Watson took seats along the stone outcrop along the riverbank. Holmes pulled up one shirtsleeve, revealing a shallow gash running up his forearm and stopping just before his elbow.

Watson frowned. "You should have mentioned you were injured," he chided.

"We were a bit busy running for our lives," Holmes reminded him.

Watson had taken to bringing a small sack full of basic medical supplies ever since the debacle on Noxasia. Holmes watched him fondly as Watson used a small bottle of antiseptic (an invention which he'd come to appreciate immensely) to clean off the wound.

Just as Watson was wrapping it, Og came over and stood in silence for a while.

"You mate?" Og asked.

Watson's kneejerk reaction was to say no, but before he could say anything at all, Holmes clasped an appreciative hand on his knee.

"Yes," Holmes said. "Yes, he's my mate."

"I am?" Watson couldn't help but ask.

"By their view, certainly," Holmes replied. "Unless you object."

"No, no," Watson said, laughing. "I suppose it's just nice to hear you say it."

"Talk too much," Og decided. "Stay with tribe. Safe, warm, yes."

The Doctor came scuttling over, eyes alight with excitement. "Boys," he said, "they've already invented  _fire!_  Ha! Imagine that!"

 

o :: o :: o

 

Night fell hard and fast. The tribe set a large fire on the dry part of the riverbed, where many of the young circled close and slept. They'd spent the last few hours eating the cat (although Watson had insisted on cooking it first, a concept that escaped the well-meaning tribe entirely) and had settled down for the night.

Holmes lay stretched out over a soft length of moss staring at the sky. In the complete and eclipsing darkness, the Milky Way stretched out across the blackness like a twisting, tattered ribbon of starlight from horizon to horizon.

Watson, meanwhile, was watching him.

"You should have said something, John."

It was strange to hear him call him by his first name, though not, he supposed, entirely unwelcome. He sat up on one elbow.

"What do you mean?"

"You know exactly what I mean."

A moment of tense silence fell over the conversation. Holmes's body was illuminated by faint starlight and Watson did not feel it helped the situation.

"I thought it would be in poor taste," he said, "since you can't—"

"I  _can_ , John, I just  _don't_. My asexuality is not an incapacitation, it's a lack of interest."

Watson frowned. "It doesn't change… I mean, I'd still feel as if—"

" _Ssh_."

It took him a moment to realize why he was being shushed, but soon he heard it: distant footsteps, rustling through the underbrush.

Holmes sprang from his spot, swift and silent. His katana sang as he pulled it free from its sheathe, and the long blade glinted appreciatively.

"Get your rifle, Watson," Holmes said before, crouched and silent, he swept off into the tall grass. Watson quickly fetched his gun and followed.

He followed the sound of Holmes's quick, deft footsteps for several meters. He was about to ask where he thought the sounds were coming from, when, quite abruptly indeed, there came a clatter of metal.

Watson stood upright and saw Holmes and his katana locked in a battle with a man in glossy black leather, a sleek black metal helmet, and two rapier-like swords. The thing that struck him first, bizarrely, was the astonishment of how well Holmes had learned to use the katana.

The astonishment soon faded, and he lifted his rifle to cock it. But before he could fire, he was knocked to the side. Six more men in leather had emerged over the hill, carrying weapons of their own.

They had been mobbed.

Watson with his army training and Holmes with his remarkable but slightly anachronistic finesse with a katana could only hold off seven men for so long. Though they held up valiantly and even felled two of them, they soon found themselves with their backs to the forest, where the already insufficient starlight turned into pure blackness.

"Watson, I…"

Holmes sighed, fingering his katana. The circled mob shrunk towards them.

"Oh, you know it all."

"We die as we live, my love," Watson said, cocking his rifle.

There came all at once a harsh, deafening ringing buzz, so strong that it made Watson's teeth rattle, and so resonant that it filled his head with a throbbing pain of the same frequency. It was intense enough to send him – as well as, he could tell, Holmes and his attackers – collapsing to his knees.

 

o :: o :: o

 

"Watson.  _Watson_. Wake up."

"Is he always this heavy a sleeper?"

"Yes."

"Up and at 'em, Watson! You'll want to see this."

He pulled his heavy eyelids apart, a task more monumental than he remembered. He saw Holmes leaning over him, gray eyes sparkling.

"Good morning, my love," Holmes said.

"Is it morning already?" he managed to ask.

"Very nearly. You'd best be up; the game's afoot."

He was in a cave, he realized, with a pale orange fog breaking through the musty air like a knife. Holmes helped him to sit upright and he became aware of the fact that the five surviving members of the team that had ambushed them were tied up around a stalagmite.

"How," Watson began, dizzily, "I mean… what happened?"

"Apparently setting two on the Doctor's sonic screwdriver is the  _make everyone in twenty yards abruptly lose consciousness_  setting."

"No," came the Doctor's voice from behind, "setting two is for weasels. Setting  _six_  is the lose consciousness one."

"There's a setting for weasels?" Watson couldn't help but ask.

Holmes grabbed both Watson's hands and pulled him to his feet. "Do you know, my love, where we've seen these people before?"

Watson looked, still bleary-eyed, to the bound men in the center of the cave.

"They do look familiar," he admitted.

"As they should! They're wearing the same uniforms as the army that surrounded us on the ship that nearly destroyed Noxasia."

Watson was flooded with memory. He remembered now – the massive army in glossy black leather with their weapons primed on the TARDIS.

"You think that man – the one you talked to, Doctor – has something to do with this attack?"

"I'd put money on it!" the Doctor said from the other side of the cave, nearer the mouth, where he was fussing with his screwdriver. "I don't meet villains often, but when I do, they're almost always around for prolonged periods of time. Sometimes they even come back from the dead."

Holmes crossed towards the group of bound soldiers and reached forward to pull off the helmet of one. There was a young woman underneath – apparently human – with thick black curls and a splattering of freckles. Holmes gave her one of his all-encompassing glances, taking in every detail and deducing at speeds that Watson could not fathom. He then moved down to pull off her gloves, studying her hands with the same scrutiny.

"How, now," he said. "Doctor, come look at this."

"Busy," the Doctor said.

"'Eliminate the impossible and whatever remains must be the truth,'" Holmes read. "I believe that's one of mine, though as I recall it, this version is truncated."

"What?" Watson crossed to look over Holmes's shoulder.

"It's tattooed around her wrist," he said, pointing to the black script that curled up her forearm and wound onto her palm.

"Why would someone have that tattooed on their flesh?" Watson wondered, sitting back on his haunches.

"Oh, didn't the Doctor tell you, Watson? Your stories become incredibly popular."

Watson blinked at him in astonishment. "They do?"

"Year fourteen million," the Doctor said, ambling over, "and people are still reading.  _The Hound of the Baskervilles_ is particularly famous."

Holmes squinted at the Doctor. "The hound of the what?"

The Doctor's hands fidgeted for a moment. "Oh, sorry. Have you not got to that one yet?"

"So we're dealing with a fan of Holmes's, then?" Watson asked. "Funny sort of way do show her devotion, don't you think?"

But the Doctor waved a hand dismissively. "She probably didn't recognize him. Thousands of different actors have played Holmes over the years, and no one from her era was ever  _really_  sure what he looked like."

"Actors?" Holmes repeated, sounding nauseous. "They write plays about me?"

"Movies, mostly. Not that you have any idea what those are."

"I don't believe in coincidence," Watson said, straightening. "Not when it's you we're dealing with, Doctor. A woman in the garb of a military force that's previously tried to kill us just happens to have one of Holmes's witticism's tattooed onto her wrist?"

"I'm inclined to think you're right," the Doctor agreed.

Holmes patted her vigorously on one freckled cheek.

"Wake up, madam. I think you're in for quite the surprise."

It took a while, but she was eventually roused, shaking her head and struggling against the ropes that bound her.

"What would your late mother say if she could see you now?" Holmes demanded. "Do you think she would approve of you attacking unarmed men as they slept?"

The girl blinked at him in hazy surprise. "Who are you?"

Holmes rose to his full height, a commanding six-foot-one, and looked down at her.

"I'll ask the questions for now, thank you," he said. "To whom do you answer?"

She shut her mouth so tightly that her lips paled several shades, and did not reopen. Holmes gave a deep and dramatic sigh.

"Let me rephrase the question," he continued, unsheathing his katana and pressing the tip of the blade beneath her chin. " _To whom do you answer?_ "

"Holmes," the Doctor said warningly.

"I'm guessing that's his sigil," Holmes deduced, turning her head and exposing another tattoo, a small barcode beneath her left ear. "Give me a name."

The Doctor was momentarily distracted by the barcode. He hurried over to scan it with his screwdriver, and flipped it out to examine the reading.

The woman bared her teeth but said nothing. Holmes crouched down in front of her again.

"You got the quote wrong, you know," he said, keeping the katana under her chin. "When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. I'm guessing you took your tattoo from a mistranslated work.

"But I wonder how rigorously you use your powers of deduction. You have all the clues before you. Who am I?"

"Nimaidi," the Doctor said in a low voice. He was still staring at the core of his sonic screwdriver, looking grim. "I remember that name. Emperor Nimaidi."

"Who is he, Doctor?" Watson asked.

"Not sure yet."

"Did you really learn nothing from Dr. Watson's stories?" Holmes asked glibly. "They're fanciful, surely, but a true student would be able to draw out lessons from them all the same."

The woman glared up at him.

Holmes lifted one of his hands to her face. "The tip-off is in the callouses."

It seemed to dawn on her. The astonishment shone clear on her face. "You? But that's…"

"Two million years before my birth, I know," he said. "But it's no more surprising than seeing you here, who, by my estimate, is twice as displaced as I."

"What were your orders coming here?" asked the Doctor, stepping forward.

She didn't answer, instead turning her head away. Holmes used the tip of his katana to turn it forward again.

"Believe me when I say, madam," Holmes purred, "that you owe this man an answer."

She frowned, and spoke reluctantly: "A simple search and destroy mission."

"For who?" asked the Doctor. "Me?"

"No," she said, "for them."

She nodded her head out the mouth of the cave, where Og and a few other men were standing watch.

"For  _them?_ " the Doctor repeated. "But you're human!"

"So?"

"So?  _So?_  Do you know who they are?"

Frowning, she said, "Captain Price didn't get that far."

"That's  _Homo habilis_  out there! Those are your ancestors! They are literally the forerunners of your entire species! And you've been sent to kill them?"

She blanched and looked again towards the cave mouth.

Holmes sheathed his katana. "There are more coming," he deduced. "How many?"

"I—"

" _How many?_ "

"At least two dozen!" she said. "It's standard procedure when the primaries don't report in."

"Doctor, come up with a solution for this," Holmes said, just as the Doctor began to pace. In the meantime, Holmes returned his attention to the girl. "Why are you doing this?" he asked. "Why did you join this wicked regime?"

For a few moments she open and shut her mouth rapidly. Eventually, she said, "To meet you."

"Well! Congratulations are in order."

"Ever since I was a little girl, I read about you. The Emperor made the taskforce and called you a part of his plan."

Holmes soured. "What part?"

"The greatest genius the universe ever knew," she said, her voice almost reverent. "The key to every secret and the answer to every question. Sherlock Holmes, the one who would open the Eye of God."

Holmes's rage fell swift and precise. The heel of his shoe pressed to her shoulder, pinning her against the stalagmite as he bore his teeth.

"There's that  _phrase_ ," he hissed. "Again and again, following us wherever we go! The Eye of God! What is the Eye of God? Tell me!"

"Holmes," Watson said, trying to pull him back with a hand on his shoulder, though he held fast.

"No, Watson! I know you've heard it! The painting in the museum, the cathedral in Noxasia, random references from the people in A'amka! That phrase stalks us through space and time, and she knows something about it!"

"The Emperor," she gasped, shallowly, struggling to breathe with Holmes's foot on her chest, "he named our taskforce after it, but – but I don't think that's all there is. He talks… the way he speaks, it's as if the Eye of God is something else."

"What?" Holmes demanded. "What is it?"

"I don't know! I swear, I don't know!"

"Holmes, that's enough!" Watson pulled him away by the back of his waistcoat.

"Let this be a lesson, madam," Holmes said, righting himself. "Never meet your heroes."

"I've got a plan!" the Doctor said abruptly, causing Holmes and Watson both to turn and look at him. "These suits, they're outfitted with communication devices, right? Right, exactly! So! We'll use them to communicate with the highest authority we can find and ask them nicely not to kill  _Homo habilis_."

"Ask them nicely?" repeated Holmes incredulously. "Your faith in humanity has become dangerously high, Doctor."

"Well, worst case scenario, we have hostages."

He picked up her helmet and began buzzing around it with his sonic screwdriver. "Odd," he mumbled as he worked, "the channels are deadlock sealed. They can only connect to one place—" Scarcely a moment later, a voice rang out from it, loud and crisp:

"Hello again, Doctor! I had a feeling I'd be seeing you."

The voice was haunting in its familiarity.

"Emperor Nimaidi, I presume?" the Doctor asked, slowly tucking away his screwdriver.

"Tell me, Doctor, have you figured out the plan yet? I'm genuinely curious."

"No, I haven't, and if I may say so, it's a pretty rubbish plan!"

There came from the helmet a low chuckle. "Is it?"

"Send your soldiers to kill their ancestors? It's pretty much a guaranteed way to lose recruits by the thousands!"

"Oh, but you've yet to see the  _big_  picture. Haven't you scanned their helmets carefully? There's more in them than just a means of communication."

The screwdriver came out a second time, humming over the surface of the helmet. It only succeeded in increasing the Doctor's confusion.

"An energy converter?"

The chuckling returned.

"But that means…" The Doctor fell silent, the wheels turning behind his eyes. "You're trying to convert… potential temporal energy?"

"Well done! And it didn't take you that long, either."

"The power of a paradox… properly converted, that sort of energy could snap the universe in half like a twig."

Watson's blood ran cold.

"And this is but one of the many legs of the greater plan. I look forward to seeing your face when it's all unveiled, Doctor. I think if anyone can appreciate the plan for its beauty, it would be you."

"You can't do this, Nimaidi," the Doctor said shortly. "You can't just kill the  _Homo habilis_. We're talking an entire race just wiped off the map! Billions of years of human progress gone in a split second! That alone could rip a hole in time!"

"Oh, but I can do it, Doctor," the emperor answered. "Can, and – in a few moments when the back-up arrives – will. Even now, all over the continent, my other soldiers are stalking their prey. It won't be long."

A tense silence stretched between them. The Doctor rose, face as cold as stone.

"I'm going to stop you," he said.

"I look forward to the show."

One last blast from the sonic screwdriver and the helmet sparked, skittering across the cave floor. The Doctor's hand curled into a fist around the screwdriver.

"I don't have a choice," he whispered.

Watson frowned. Holmes bowed his head.

The Doctor looked across at Holmes. There was a sadness in his eyes so deep it put every tragedy written to the most profound shame.

"This may be my lowest hour," the Doctor said.

"What do you mean?" Watson asked, but the Doctor was already setting off out of the cave. Holmes took Watson's hand and followed him out. "Holmes, what is he talking about?"

"He's going to kill them," Holmes answered blackly, causing Watson to reel back.

"Kill them? But surely there's another way—!"

"You heard him, Watson, they're all over the continent  _right now_. They're preparing to kill their own ancestors. He has two options: kill every man and woman answering to the Emperor or let them kill the  _Homo habilis_. His choice is the lesser of two evils."

"Holmes! We're talking about  _mass murder_. You can't possibly think that—"

"What then?"

It was the Doctor, stopping dead in his tracks and whirling round to face them. He was angry and terrifying.

"What do I do? Please tell me, Watson, because I don't see another answer! Either I save the  _Homo habilis_  and prevent the entire flow of time from cracking, or I kill a few hundred people indiscriminately!"

Watson met his gaze, but he could not think of an answer. The Doctor's anger deflated, but the desperate sadness was still there, burning in his eyes like dry ice.

"And then maybe I should change my name," the Doctor said, as he continued back into the forest, "because I'll have lost this title."

"Doctor," Holmes hissed, sprinting to catch up. "Doctor, listen to me. I understand. It's the burden of your kind, isn't it? Time Lord – it's more than just a name."

Holmes gripped his shoulder.

"This is the better of two terrible outcomes, neither of which are your fault."

The Doctor said nothing. All he did was shrug out of Holmes's hand and keep walking. Holmes looked back at Watson brokenly.

They continued on through the forest.

 

o :: o :: o

 

"INCOMING TRANSMISSION."

Neither of them moved. Watson stood at Holmes's side, their hands interlaced, their bodies leaning against each other for support.

"INCOMING TRANSMISSION."

The Doctor slapped the side of the screen.

"I did it," the Doctor said before the one transmitting could speak. "I killed every single one of your men deployed here. Specialized neurokinetic death wave. Affects your men but not the  _Homo habilis_."

"So I noticed."

Watson buried his face in Holmes's shoulder.

"Who are you, Emperor? I think you owe me that much."

"Do I?"

"You've forced my hand," the Doctor hissed. "You've made me kill. You are already in a supremely dangerous place to be."

"The wrath of a Time Lord. They have myths about such hells."

" _Answer me!_ "

A moment of silence. Then, "I am going to be the man who fights the Doctor and wins. I am going to be the master of this universe."

"Then I am going to  _be there to stop you._ "


	10. Still Life

"You should talk to him."

Holmes cast him a wary look.

"Should I?" he returned. "Why me and not you?"

Watson shrugged. "One genius to another." Stroking his ego usually worked, but Holmes still seemed dissatisfied.

"There's genius and there's Time Lord genius. They're two very different levels of intellectual prowess."

"Genius isn't subjective," Watson said. "It's a state of being, a detachment, a pain. And it's entirely relative."

Holmes looked across at him, seeming surprised. "You show wisdom beyond your years."

Watson smiled and said, "Well, I've spent enough time around you, haven't I?"

He looked back at the console. The Doctor had been circling it for the better part of an hour, forlornly setting and resetting the engine calibration, even though it only needed to be done once every few trips. It was a sad sight to see – sad and a little bit pathetic.

"I don't know what I'd even say to him," Holmes said. "The weight must be extraordinary."

"He knows it was necessary. He just needs reminding, I think."

"No, it's more than that," Holmes said slowly. "There's a more profound pain in him. Nine hundred years old… a human has committed worse atrocities in ten years than three hundred deaths for just cause. There's something else weighing on him. Something we don't understand."

Watson frowned. "What could make any heart so heavy?"

"Would you really want to know?"

Watson turned forward, considering his answer for a moment. "No," he said eventually. "I don't think I would, actually."

Holmes righted himself, sighing. "Still," he said, "I should talk to him, if for no other reason than to keep him from wearing a tread in the floor of the console room." He leaned over and kissed Watson languidly on the corner of the mouth, then pushed off towards the console.

The Doctor looked up when he entered. Holmes threw himself into the chair.

"So," Holmes said, "you need a vacation."

"I live in a time machine, travelling all of space and time with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. What about my life  _isn't_  a vacation?" His words were brave and his smile was firm, but it wasn't fooling Holmes.

"You travel aimlessly, being daft and fixing what needs fixing. When was the last time you went somewhere specifically for the purpose of relaxing?"

The Doctor's smile flickered out of existence. He went back to attending to the console.

Holmes rose and leveled him with an even stare. "You don't want to relax, do you, Doctor?" he asked. "Because when you relax, you stop thinking. And when you stop thinking, your mind always drifts back…"

"Holmes," said the Doctor, his voice a low and grave warning.

"Is it to do with Gallifrey?"

The hand hovering over the panel of switches halted.

The lack of answer was answer enough for Sherlock Holmes. "Would it help if you talked about it?"

The Doctor was silent for a while. Eventually, his hand returned to the switchboard.

"No," he said, "not really."

"Then would it help to know that after everything we've been through, I find myself utterly incapable of hating you, no matter what you've done?"

The TARDIS engines thrummed and began to oscillate. The Doctor looked across at him, his gaze searching. It drew, after a moment, a terrible and tragic smile.

"Yes," said the Doctor, "that helps."

"Then hear it and know it to be true. And in the meantime, I have someplace I'd like to see."

Watson came out from the back hallway, and the Doctor raised both eyebrows. "My, my," he said. "Mr. Holmes, aren't you being adventurous."

"I picked up a pamphlet on it while we were in the museum," he said, producing a thrice-folded piece of cardstock from the pocket of his waistcoat. "I must admit that when I read the given description, I was most intrigued. It's called Castle Vivas – built in the year 10,500,000 from the living stone of the surrounding mountains. It is a _sentient castle_."

Watson seemed unconvinced. "How can a castle be sentient?"

"It's not as impossible as you might think," the Doctor said. "I've met sentient stars before, so all things considered, castles is a step down. Still, Castle Vivas is a bit, well…"

Holmes raised an eyebrow. "A bit what?"

"Touristy."

"Isn't that what we are, Doctor?" Holmes answered, laughing. "Tourists?"

The Doctor grinned and pulled down the hand brake. "Well, when you put it like that. I suppose I can stand touristy for a little while if dear Mr. Holmes finds it so interesting."

"Aren't you accommodating," Holmes teased, grabbing hold of the console just as they tumbled off through time and space.

When they stepped out of the TARDIS, they were nearly blinded. They had landed about half a league off from the castle, which was situated at the low crux between two mountains. The walls were gleaming white marble, rimmed with gold from the sunset behind it. Its spires reached up into the pinkish horizon, and its crimson banners were caught high in the wind.

"My word," Watson said reverently. "It's beautiful!"

"So this is what a sentient castle looks like," Holmes remarked. "I must say, it bears a striking resemblance to the non-sentient variety."

"It's subtle," the Doctor said, "like the TARDIS. It's sentient, but not, explicitly speaking, conscious."

They started off across the drawbridge, the Doctor ambling out in front and Holmes and Watson trailing behind, their hands interlaced. As they made it to the immense, arching doorway and into the antechamber, the true opulence of the castle hit them full force.

The main hall alone was a dazzling example of opulence with its vaulted ceilings, stained glass windows and marble floors. The immensity of it echoed around them, soft and reverberant, and very, very empty.

"Like I said," the Doctor said. "Touristy."

"Something becomes popular because it has much to offer," Holmes pointed out, heading forward to peer around the room. "Doesn't this strike you as odd, Doctor?"

"Odd in what way?"

"Well," Holmes said slowly as he scanned the hall, "you keep mentioning how it's a tourist hotspot. It's the middle of a beautiful day. Why, then, is it empty?"

The word "empty" rang around the room. The Doctor frowned and slowly produced his sonic screwdriver, which he used to scan the surrounding area. He flipped it back open and checked the readings.

"Interesting," was all he said.

"That's our cue to look around, Watson, my love," Holmes said as he took Watson by the arm and started up the immense, curving staircase leading to an overhanging hallway.

"Don't go too far!" the Doctor called after them. "I'm going round to see the origin of these power fluctuations!"

But Holmes and Watson were already halfway up the steps. A draft rushed past them as they reached the upper level.

"Have you thought about the proposition I mentioned last night, Watson?" asked Holmes as they turned left and headed further into the upper level.

"Ah. Well. Yes, but…"

"Why does it make you so uncomfortable?"

"Holmes—"

"It's what you wanted, isn't it?"

Watson shook his head. "No. Not as such, anyway. Holmes, sex shouldn't…" He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck as he wondered how to phrase it. "It shouldn't be a preventative measure. It should be a celebration of love."

Holmes lofted one eyebrow. "Why can't it be both?"

"Because you're asexual! For you it would be clinical and calculated."

"Watson, just because I have no sexual drive does not mean my desire isn't earnest. I want to share it with you because I love you and I want to make you happy. Isn't that reason enough?"

"Holmes, look!"

They'd reached a wide hallway lined with artwork and windows, looking rather like an immense gallery. Streams of white sunlight filtered in and illuminated scores of what seemed, at first look, to be statues.

"What strange statuary," Watson said as he hesitantly moved forward. He inspected a group of three who were standing in admiration of a painting of a violet-skinned woman.

"These aren't statues," Holmes said gravely.

"They're made of stone," remarked Watson.

"The same stone as the floor, as if they emerged directly from it," Holmes continued as he circled a statue in the center of the hallway whose face was contorted into a terrified scream. "This type of stone wouldn't have the tensile strength necessary to be so molded."

"How, then, did they come to be?"

"Excellent question," muttered Holmes.

From the other side of the room there suddenly came a voice, new but familiar: "One that we do not have time to answer."

Holmes was first to spin around on his heel, Watson a split second after. Their weapons were half-drawn when they saw, to their astonishment—

" _Mycroft?_ "

There he was, in his suit and top hat, with his weighted cane and hard-soled shoes clicking on the floor as he approached. He came to a stop in front of his brother with the same, infuriating smile he always wore.

"Hello, brother," Mycroft said. "I've been looking for you."

 

o :: o :: o

 

The Doctor's screwdriver buzzed increasingly frequently, guiding him slowly to the source of the power fluctuations. He was, by his estimate, about ten yards away when he tripped and landed on his face.

He pulled himself up and dusted himself off only to find that he'd tripped over a stone foot.

Sometimes when he was really focused on something he didn't notice anything else, even if it was a statue attached to the wall that was writing the word "RUN".

"Run," the Doctor read. "Strange sort of statue."

He scanned it with his screwdriver. The readings made him frown.

"That's not good," he decided. Then he raised his voice and called, "Holmes? Watson?" He took off in a jog.

 

o :: o :: o

 

"That's not possible," Holmes decided. "How is this possible?"

"We really don't have time for an explanation," Mycroft said lightly.

"We're millions of years into the future and on a different planet," Holmes said, his voice rapidly becoming more and more shrill. "How is it possible that you're here?"

"I am merely doing what I have always done," said Mycroft. "I am looking out for you."

"Looking out for me!" Holmes laughed humorlessly. "Is that what you call it? Because most would call it stalking!"

"We need to leave Castle Vivas immediately," Mycroft said. "It is not safe."

"I should say so. Apparently they're letting anyone in these days," countered Holmes disparagingly.

Watson grabbed his shoulder. "I think we have more important things to focus on than sibling rivalry, my friend," he said.

"Like leaving," Mycroft volunteered.

"Like answers," Watson riposted. "Sherlock's right; it's a very big universe out there, and there's every possibility that you're some sort of weird alien imposter. How can we be sure you are who you say you are?"

Mycroft smirked. "I suppose you can't," he said. "But the real question is what choice you have."

"Holmes! Watson!"

The Doctor came skidding around the corner.

"We have to leave right now. It's very dangerous and I think all these statues are bodies and who's this?"

Holmes's lips pursed. "Doctor, this is my brother, Mycroft Holmes – or at least something very similar to him."

The Doctor spent a few minutes looking between Sherlock and Mycroft. "What, really?"

Mycroft stepped towards the Doctor and looked over him very carefully. "Interesting," he said.

"What are you doing here?" the Doctor asked.

"He won't say."

"We need to leave," Mycroft said, turning away from the Doctor. "All of us. Right now."

"Agreed," the Doctor said with a nod. "I just ran a scan and all these statues around us weren't always statues. They're being…" He frowned and hunted for the right verb.

"Digested," Mycroft suggested, his voice grim.

"How do you mean, digested?" Watson asked.

"This castle is sentient," the Doctor said. "It's alive. And for some reason, it's also hungry."

"Fine, yes," Holmes said, "very well; back to the TARDIS. But brother dearest is coming with us; I don't care if I have to drag you. You're answering my questions."

They set off back down the hallway from whence they came until they reached the top of the staircase. Below them, where the large front doorway should have been, there was nothing but a flat stone wall.

"Oh, no," the Doctor said. "No, no, no!" He ran forward and splayed both hands over the wall. "Why can't we ever just  _leave?_ "

"Smash the windows, then," Watson said, producing his rifle from the sling across his bag and firing it. The glass shattered initially, but quickly sealed itself back up like a scab.

"We're trapped," Holmes muttered.

"The curse of sentience is mortality," Mycroft said, sounding entirely too mild for the direness of the situation. "We must find a way to kill it."

"What? No!" the Doctor countered, sounding offended. "Why do we have to kill it? I don't like killing!"

"Don't you?" Mycroft wondered, sounding grimly amused. "You've certainly done enough of it."

The Doctor felt his blood run cold. "Who are you?"

Mycroft smiled. "The one with the answers. The only way out is to kill the castle. I advise we spend our time and effort trying to figure out how."

"Killing should be a last resort," Watson offered uncertainly.

"It shouldn't be any kind of resort!" the Doctor protested.

"My job, my only objective, is to protect Sherlock," said Mycroft. "I am not burdened with guilt. If you will not kill this castle, then I will."

"Your job? What do you mean by that?" asked Watson.

"I'll have to stop you," warned the Doctor.

"By killing me?" Mycroft challenged glibly.

"If necessary."

"How very Biblical. I can see now why you've been running so far."

" _Who are you?_ " the Doctor asked again, his tone more demanding.

"Hate to break up the argument," Holmes rasped, "but we have a bit of a problem."

Watson was the first to turn, and when he saw the stone floor snaking up Holmes's ankle like a terrible vine. "Holmes!" he said, hurrying forward and kicking at the stone.

"No, no, no!" the Doctor said, throwing himself against the floor and frantically running his screwdriver around the surface of the growing stone cast. "Stop it! Stop it!"

Mycroft easily produced a monocle from his waistcoat pocket. As Watson and the Doctor frantically pounded and buzzed at the growing sheathe of stone, which had reached his mid-thigh, Mycroft's monocle flashed a bright golden and the stone abruptly shattered. Reactively, the entire castle gave a shudder as if it were in pain.

"How did you—?" the Doctor began.

"This room is no longer safe," Mycroft said. "Run."

With Holmes limping slightly, they took off towards the far end of the ground floor and came into something that looked like a dining room.

"Do you folks play 'The Floor Is Lava' in Victorian England?" the Doctor asked as he climbed up onto the table. "Everyone up!"

As the others clambered off the floor, Holmes reached into his vest pocket and produced the same pamphlet he'd plucked from the museum and began to pore over it.

"It's a very simple game," the Doctor said. "Just don't step on the floor or the castle will eat you."

"We need a plan, Doctor," Watson said. "And I know you don't like killing, but—"

" _No,_ " he said resolutely. "There's been entirely too much killing!"

"Doctor," Watson continued impatiently, "I know you're still upset about what happened with the  _Homo habilis_ , but you said yourself that this castle is sentient but not conscious. How does one reason with something that isn't conscious?"

"We'll find a way!"

"And if we don't? The TARDIS is outside; we can't get to it. We're trapped."

"It has a brain," Holmes said.

Watson and the Doctor looked up to Holmes, who had unfolded the pamphlet and was pointing to a particular passage within. "I thought I remembered reading something about it. There's a brain in the cellar. If nothing else we can interface with it. The sonic screwdriver does have a psychic interface, so in theory—"

"In theory, yes," Mycroft said, "but it won't reason; it isn't capable of that."

"I'll hold on passing judgment," Holmes answered snippily. "I'm still not convinced you're not some evil clone or an alien or a hologram or something. You most certainly are not my brother."

"How do we get from here to the cellar?" Watson asked.

"Isn't it obvious, Dr. Watson?" the Doctor said as he picked up one of the dining chairs. "The floor is lava, so we build a bridge!"

 

o :: o :: o

 

It was a cumbersome but effective method. With five dining chairs and a wobbly system of passing, they were able to make their way across the castle. The stone floor beneath them would quake and rock like a strange stone ocean, and on more than one occasion it threatened to knock them over.

That they made it down the steps was nothing short of a miracle. When they came into the main room of the lowest level, they were met with a web of thin, stone columns crisscrossing from floor to ceiling or wall to wall. Tiny electrical impulses ran along the lengths of the shafts.

"Incredible!" Watson said. "A web of neurons made from stone!"

"The wildest of fictions pale in comparison to fact," Holmes said as he watched the impulses glint and flicker across the stone.

"Let me see if I can interface with it," the Doctor said as he produced his sonic screwdriver from his pocket. He'd scarcely begun to scan when he dropped it and doubled over, gripping his head.

"Doctor!" Watson said, grabbing him by the shoulder. "What's wrong?"

"It's in pain," Mycroft remarked with a detached, clinical interest. "As if it's been tortured somehow. The sonic screwdriver reflected it back into the Doctor."

"How does one torture a castle?" Holmes wondered.

"Carefully, I imagine," Mycroft replied.

"Blimey, that's a lot of pain," the Doctor said as he ran his hands through his hair, mussing it even further. "It's deliberate, too. Someone's making it happen; but how? And why?"

The Doctor leapt off his chair and landed on a desk in the corner of the room, scanning the wall.

Holmes was left to look at Mycroft, the suspicion on his face glaring.

"Who are you, really?" he asked.

Mycroft gazed back at him, not responding.

"How did you get here?" Holmes pressed.

But still Mycroft said nothing.

"How do you know all of this? How did you break my foot free and how did you know this castle is being tortured?"

But still Mycroft said nothing.

"Why aren't you answering me?" he demanded angrily.

"The time isn't right," Mycroft said. "Not yet."

"Time? What on earth are you talking about? If you're really my brother, then you've had nothing but time!"

"I am not your brother," Mycroft said.

"So you aren't Mycroft Holmes."

"I am Mycroft Holmes, after a fashion," he remarked, "but I am not your brother."

"You're not making any sense! Mycroft Holmes is my brother! Either you are him or you aren't! Which is it?"

Still, Mycroft remained silent. The look on his face was almost sad.

"Answer me!"

"I can't," he said. "I'm sorry."

"Ah-ha!" the Doctor cried. Something from below hummed and buzzed, and the floor opened up. Emerging from beneath came a large, dusty screen, which, after a few moments, flickered and sputtered to life.

"Good evening, Doctor!"

The Doctor whirled around on the table and saw the shadowy figure – the emperor – staring out at him, his face obscured by the backlight.

"Him again," Watson groaned.

"Don't bother trying to respond. This is just a recording. I've set it to play when your screwdriver unlocks the sonic cage I've put around this poor castle's brain."

The Doctor slowly climbed off the table and back onto the chair to get a closer look.

"I'm not quite sure where in your timeline this message has ended up, so without revealing too much, I'll just say that it's so far been a singular pleasure. You really do have quite a remarkable mind!

"I've set up this entire castle just for you. The entire thing was commissioned by me specifically for this purpose. Allow me to explain.

"Built into the very framework of this remarkable piece of architecture is the strongest generator on the planet. As I speak it's pumping thousands of volts directly into its brain. In addition to being excruciatingly painful, it also drives the poor thing just a little bit mad. If all goes according to plan – which, if you've heard this message, it has – it has already killed everyone to set foot within it, starting with the moment you landed your TARDIS. Or, well, _almost_  everyone. You and your friends still seem to be alive. Congratulations!"

The Doctor's face darkened.

"Now here's the fun part: I designed this torture device to be built into the very body of the castle. You cannot destroy the torture mechanism without destroying the castle, itself. So either you kill this beautiful, remarkable, living piece of architecture, or it carries on for millions of years in unendurable agony, eating anyone who happens to wander inside.

"I wonder if your conscience can take such an act of violence. But then, you didn't seem to have any trouble killing three thousand humans for the sake of their progenitors. Of course, that was to save all of humanity! I wonder, does that lessen the guilt that comes with all those lives? Does it soften the blow, knowing that the ends justified the means?"

The Doctor swallowed.

"It's been a pleasure, Doctor. I'll see you soon."

The screen went black and descended back into the floor.

For several very long moments, silence stretched between them.

"He's correct," Mycroft said. "My scans reveal that the generator stretches across the entire lower half of the castle."

"I know," the Doctor answered, sitting cross-legged down on the chair.

"That's his plan?" Holmes wondered aloud. "To guilt you to death? It seems a little slow in terms of efficacy."

"I have to do it," the Doctor said, covering his face with both hands. "I have to kill it. It's the only way."

Watson crossed to the empty chair next to the Doctor. "As a medical man," he said, "I can say that if this entity is truly in so much pain, killing it would be mercy before it is murder."

"It's still murder," the Doctor said. "Saying it's anything less is just a rationalization."

"Whatever you do, Doctor," Holmes said lowly, "I advise you do it soon. The stairwell through which we came through is beginning to shut."

The rumbling of stone became audible. The stairway was squeezing closed like a knotted hose. Reluctantly, the Doctor rose and looked into the central bundle of interconnected stone columns.

"This castle is ten thousand years old," he said.

"Mycroft! What are you doing?"

He'd stepped off the chair, and the floor beneath them once again began to ripple and shake like a choppy sea. He carefully walked to the center of the room, ducking a few columns until he reached the middle bundle.

"I'm doing what I have always done, Sherlock," Mycroft said. "I'm protecting you."

" _Mycroft!_ "

The stone began to snake up his legs. Mycroft pressed both hands to the grouping of columns, and all at once, cracks began to form across his skin, through which dazzling white-gold light shone through. The cracks grew wider and more numerous until, with a roar, he seemed to split apart at the seams.

The electrical impulses running through the columns stopped. The entire building began to groan, as if it had been hit with a wrecking ball and was about to collapse in on itself. Where Mycroft Holmes once stood, there was nothing more than a small, clear crystal.

"Get out! Everyone get out! Run!"

The Doctor leapt off the chair and urged Watson to do the same. Holmes managed to dive forward and grab the crystal off the ground before loping off behind Watson, who was already hurrying up the narrowed staircase.

Enormous chunks of stone broke off and crashed into the ground around them. They weaved their way through falling rafters until they came to the entrance hall. Again Watson pulled out his rifle and fired into the window; this time, it did not patch itself back up, and they climbed through one at a time.

Castle Vivas came down with a deafening cry, its mighty spires cracking and collapsing, dust rising up to a blinding fog into the sky. Holmes barely made it across the bridge and into the TARDIS before it all collapsed along the mountainside.

 

o :: o :: o

 

"Doctor…"

He didn't answer. He was staring into the console listlessly. Holmes did not need to ask to see that he was conflicted, and it killed him to see it.

"Doctor."

He held out the crystal beneath the Doctor's nose. The Doctor frowned and slowly plucked it off his palm.

"This was all that was left of Mycroft," Holmes said. "What is it?"

The Doctor didn't reply immediately. He circled to the other side of the console and put the strange gem under a magnifying glass. He examined it in silence.

"That's not possible."

"We've dealt with many impossible things today, Doctor, and I haven't even yet had breakfast. What is it?"

"It's…" The Doctor stood upright. "It can't be. It's…" He looked at Holmes, as if some great and terrible news had just hit him. "How could you have it?"

"Have what?" asked Watson, who'd been listening from the side. "What is it?"

Again, the Doctor didn't answer. Eventually, however, he said: "Tell me about your childhood."

The question seemed to be such a non sequitur that it caught both Holmes and Watson by surprise.

"Where on earth did that question come from?" Holmes asked.

"Your childhood," the Doctor repeated, speaking so carefully one would think he was next to a ticking bomb. "Tell me about it. It's a simple enough question."

"It… it was normal," Holmes said uncertainly. "I'm not sure what you want me to say."

"Who were your childhood friends?" the Doctor asked.

Holmes frowned and pursed his lips.

"What was your favorite food that your mum cooked for you?" he continued. "Did your parents have a good relationship? How did you spend your youth?"

Holmes shifted his weight between his feet. This response – or rather, the lack of response – seemed to startle the Doctor even more.

"But – no, that isn't possible," he said. "In Galilee, I took it from you – unless it was in something else? Something—" The Doctor stopped abruptly and looked back at the crystal. All color had since drained from his face.

"Doctor," Watson said impatiently, "you're not making any sense. Out with it, man! Clear and concise! What is that crystal?"

"It can't be," he whispered. "It's not possible. It—"

The entirety of the TARDIS shook suddenly, so violently that all three of them fell to one side. The core began to oscillate and the lights flickered violently.

" _Good evening, Doctor!_ " came a familiar voice from the TARDIS screen. " _I told you I'd be seeing you soon!_ "


	11. His Brother's Keeper

"We're in a tractor beam!" the Doctor cried over the roaring, wailing grind of the engines. The fire on the console was growing, sparks were flying wildly, and the TARDIS was rocking so violently that they were barely able to keep themselves from being tossed about the room. "I can't stop it; it's moving too fast!"

The Emperor's voice boomed from every corner. " _If I were in your shoes, I'd hold on to something!_ "

The TARDIS suddenly began to tumble, rolling end over end as it was dragged through space. Red floodlights filled the room, and the emergency siren began to wail. Holmes, Watson and the Doctor held on for dear life for a nightmarish eternity until, just as abruptly as it began, it stopped.

It had landed on its side. They'd managed to catch themselves on the railing near the steps leading to the door, but were still struggling to gather their thoughts as the console room filled with smoke.

"Boy, is this familiar," the Doctor wheezed. "Holmes! You there?"

"Yes – yes, I'm here."

"Watson?"

Watson coughed reactively. "Fine. Battered but fine."

"Okay," said the Doctor, "we're all fine, relatively speaking. The TARDIS is on fire and we should probably get out before we suffocate to death. Holmes, can you climb to the door?"

"I think so, yes."

"Good, yes. On you get. Follow that detective!"

One by one they clambered across the railing, tugged their way down the steps and struggled to the door. Holmes managed to push it open and was the first to fall through, rolling out onto a flat, cool floor. The Doctor followed, and Watson emerged last, still coughing.

Holmes tumbled onto his back. "It's at moments like these that I have trouble remembering why I agreed to travel with you," he said.

"Was it my sparkling personality?" the Doctor asked as he caught his breath.

"I think it was the time machine," Watson panted, resting his forehead against the floor. "What the hell happened?"

"Something very spacey-wacey. No offense, but it would be tough to explain to a physicist, let alone a physician from 19th century London."

The Doctor lifted his head. They were, not for the first time, surrounded by men in black leather suits with very large guns.

"So there's that," the Doctor said. "Holmes, before you look up, I have a very important question for you. The most important question you'll hear in your lifetime. Are you ready for it?"

"Probably not," Holmes admitted.

"Do you have the crystal?"

Holmes's fist tightened around the little gemstone. "Yes," he said. "I nicked it off the console when we started to shake."

"Good!" said the Doctor with a wildly inappropriate smile. "That's good. Actually, it's excellent, because if it were still in the TARDIS it would have eventually been incinerated. Follow-up question to the most important question in your lifetime: would you mind passing it over here?"

"Oh, I'm afraid I can't allow that."

The new voice was echoed by the sound of footsteps on a hard floor. The Doctor was the first to scramble to his feet, though he made sure to pull Holmes and Watson up by the arms.

He took a moment to adjust his jacket and bowtie before he finally looked at the newcomer.

"Emperor Nimaidi, I presume," the Doctor said, his hands dropping to his sides only after he was satisfied with his shirt collar. "This is a meeting long overdue. I have to admit, I expected someone younger."

He seemed human to the untrained eye, but the Doctor could detect subtle similarities. He was, for example, almost a foot taller than average, and his skin was too pale and his limbs were too long. His glossy white hair and the fine cobweb of wrinkles around his eyes betrayed his otherwise youthful physique. The long formal robes were gilded and made his sharp, golden eyes stand out on his thin face.

The sea of soldiers had parted for him, and those closest had raised their guns in salute.

"And I expected someone older," remarked the emperor mirthfully, "though as I understand it, you're older than you look, aren't you, Doctor?"

"Quite a bit, yes." He clapped his hands together. "So, now that we've got the flirting out of the way, how about we get down to the heart of the matter, eh? Because let's be honest; we've been dancing around it long enough. What is it you want, and why should I care?"

The emperor smiled, and it was a black expression on his white face. "I'd hoped for the opportunity to get to know you a bit better, Doctor, but I suppose you're right. If the stories about you are true, then I can't risk making the same mistakes." He glided towards the Doctor, footsteps sharp and echoless, and came to a stop in front of him. "That starts with not blurting out my plans just because you ask."

The Doctor seemed surprised. "Really? Normally people just sort of do."

"Give me some credit. I'm much smarter than that. I'm probably even smarter than you." He raised his voice to address the small army encircling them. "Watson and the Time Lord go to the prison. Take Holmes to the Eye. Don't harm them yet."

"No!" Watson cried, hurrying towards Holmes. Two large guards caught him by either elbow. " _No!_  Let go of me! Holmes!"

"Watson!" Twice as many guards that had descended on Watson and the Doctor came upon Holmes, grabbing every available limb. "Release me, you barbarians!"

"Emperor, it doesn't have to be this way!" the Doctor said, thrashing against the guards that held him. "I can leave now and we can both get out of this unscathed."

The emperor chuckled. "Oh, isn't it always the way? You have to give everyone a choice. It just isn't in you to simply assume that someone will always choose villainy." With a gesture of one long, thin hand, the emperor signaled for Holmes to be taken away.

"Doctor!" Holmes cried as he was dragged away. "Check your left pocket!"

Scarcely before Holmes finished talking, the Doctor's hand was stuffed into his pocket. Past the trombone and the rubber chicken and the bag of marbles, he felt a familiar surface beneath his fingertips.

"Oh, Holmes, you clever, clever, man!" And before the guards knew what had hit them, his sonic screwdriver was buzzing against the face of the crystal.

The force of the ensuing explosion surprised even the Doctor. Everyone within ten feet toppled to the ground, and the crystal rose higher into the air, shining and prismatic in the white floodlights.

"THREAT DETECTED," said the crystal. "INITIATING DEFENSE PROTOCOL ALPHA."

A focused beam of light sliced its way towards the guards, leaving a hot red trail that burned its way through the leather suits and made the skin beneath start to sizzle. The guards screamed and recoiled, leaving Holmes to shake his way out from the center of the group.

"Run!" the Doctor cried. "Run, run, run!"

"No!" the emperor called as the three of them took off away from the startled army, who were firing wildly at the tiny white crystal. "Get them!  _Get them!_ "

As they sprinted through the wide white room – which the Doctor thought, somewhere in the back of his mind, looked rather like a hangar – the now floating crystal whizzed through the air to keep up with them. They were forced to duck gunfire until they made it around a corner into a corridor and through several doors.

When they finally came to a stop, it was in what appeared to be a large aquarium full of silver fish. The Doctor locked the door behind them.

"Should be all right for a little while," the Doctor panted, "catch your breaths, have a hug. Go on, hug!"

Watson spared no further time before he pulled Holmes into his embrace. "God, that was close," he said into Holmes's neck.

"Initiate default cloak," the Doctor said to the crystal, before it took the shape of a floating white cylinder. "No, no. Not that one. Initiate the  _other_  cloak."

And then, standing in front of them as if it weren't abjectly bizarre, was Mycroft Holmes. He was standing straight as a rail, eyes forward.

Holmes pulled away from the embrace to look at Mycroft. "What is it? Tell me, Doctor, because I know for a fact that this is not my brother."

"Well, no. Strictly speaking, it isn't your brother. But I'll get to that in a minute. Can you access any of the local databanks remotely?"

Mycroft was silent for a moment before he answered: "NEGATIVE. DATABANKS SEALED. DIRECT ACCESS REQUIRED."

"Well, if we're going to figure anything out, we'll have to start there. I think I've been spoiled by years of enemies telling me the entire plan." The Doctor rumpled his hair. "If I were an evil emperor with all the money I could ever need, where would I put my databanks?"

"What are you?" Holmes asked Mycroft tightly. "Answer me."

Mycroft's head turned around and his eyes moved down Holmes's body, as if scanning him.

"CANNOT COMPLY WITH REQUEST."

"Why the devil not?"

"ACTION DEEMED UNSAFE."

Holmes laughed humorlessly. "Even as some absurd alien technology, my brother still decides what I should and should not know." He looked to the Doctor, whose hands were still in his hair. "Well? You said that you'd tell me what it is."

The Doctor frowned and began rubbing his hands together anxiously. "The answer is sort of complicated," he admitted. "Most empirically, it's called a Cloaked Receptacle and Overseer of the First Tribunal. But it usually goes by the acronym."

Holmes suddenly gained a look of deep-running pain. "A – you call it a CROFT? It's – it's my CROFT?" He lifted one hand and pressed it to his temple, as if quelling a headache.

Watson put a hand on Holmes's forearm. "Are you all right?"

"I've… I've suddenly got a splitting headache," Holmes whimpered.

The Doctor's frown only deepened. "Yes," he said, "you've been getting lots of those lately, haven't you?"

"Doctor, enough of this," Watson hissed. "If you know something, say it! This is neither the time nor the place to be circuitous!"

For several long moments, the Doctor said nothing. He was looking at Holmes with a deep and profound sadness, but also a sort of resign. Eventually he turned his head to Mycroft and said, "Initiate vanity template."

His posture suddenly became quite loose and Mycroft spent a while adjusting his cravat.

"Well, that's better, isn't it?" Mycroft said mildly. "Do we actually have a plan or are we going to continue to stand around in an aquarium until we are discovered?"

Holmes's headache seemed to subside. The Doctor's strange, unknowable pain did not.

Holmes looked to the Doctor pleadingly. "Please, Doctor," he said, "tell me what's going on."

Again the Doctor fell silent. He looked down at his clasped hands. "No time," he said. "We've got a databank to find." When he looked back up at the pair, his bravely broken face was shining sadly. "Come on, then. No time to lose."

 

o :: o :: o

 

Whenever the Doctor was trying to do some good, honest sneaking, every creaky floorboard and every rusty door worked in tandem to conspire against him.

It certainly didn't help that wherever they were, the halls were absolutely labyrinthine. The Doctor couldn't be sure what purpose the whole structure served, but whatever it was, the emperor had deemed it necessary to include a terrarium, a planetarium, a laboratory, and what appeared to be a small art gallery.

Holmes kept looking over his shoulder at Mycroft, who was taking up the rear. He didn't say it, but the Doctor could tell that he was apprehensive just being around something that looked like his brother but clearly wasn't. The Doctor couldn't blame him. And in the back of his mind, the Doctor wondered what he should do about it – because eventually, he'd have the time to explain.

It wasn't until nearly twenty minutes of poorly executed sneaking had passed before the four of them came to a very promising door with a sign that read "TECHNICIANS ONLY – NO ADMITTANCE".

"That's good!" the Doctor said, buzzing the latch with his screwdriver. "A keep out sign usually points me in the right direction. Come on, boys."

"What is it we're looking for again?" Watson asked as they slipped carefully through the door and into a dimly lit room full of monitors.

"The primary databanks," the Doctor said as he scurried up to the nearest monitor and tapped through a few options. "The emperor won't tell me what the plan is, so I'll have to find out myself if I'm going to properly sabotage it." Several menus flickered to life on the screen that made the Doctor frown. "Wherever we are, we're not terribly far from earth," he said, "only about 700 light-years. We're not even that far into the past, about 12,500 years before your time."

"What can you find about the Eye of God?" Watson asked, leaning over the Doctor's shoulder as he worked.

"The entire databank is called the Eye of God," answered the Doctor. "The whole station, too – that's what we're on, a massive space station. In fact, the Eye of God is an entire intergalactic corporation owned, operated and managed by Emperor Nimaidi. Whatever his plan is, it's at least as old as the company, which recently celebrated its 400th birthday."

"What does the company do?" Watson asked. "That may give us some clue."

"They are…" He spent a while buzzing at the screen with his screwdriver to bypass security clearances. "If I'm right, they're the first major corporation from the Omicron civilization to master time travel. They facilitate it for recreational, industrial and corporate purposes. These space stations exist all throughout space and time, but for some reason this one in particular is the biggest. Which, of course, raises the question of why."

Watson squinted at a monitor just above the one the Doctor was studying. "What is that?" he asked, gesturing towards it. The Doctor looked up and frowned.

"That's…"

He pulled the monitor down to his level. Slowly rotating on the screen, surrounded by meters and diagnostics, was what appeared to be— "That's a diagram of a black hole. A huge black hole – supermassive, if my days of quantum physics don't fail me. They're monitoring it from every possible angle and in every possible dimension. How are they getting all this data?"

The Doctor went back to puzzling over the screens. Watson looked back to Holmes, who was leaning against the wall and staring, almost disdainfully, at Mycroft, who was in turn watching the Doctor. Watson crossed the room and stood next to him.

"You must not get too distracted," Watson said as he took one of Holmes's hands in his own.

"How can I help but wonder?" asked Holmes, whose eyes didn't move away from Mycroft. "To what degree is this… this  _thing_  actually my brother? How much of my life is based on a lie?"

Watson touched his fingertips to Holmes's chin fondly. "You," he began, "are Sherlock bloody Holmes. There is no force on heaven or earth that could erase all the good you've done in your lifetime. Whatever happens, whatever changes, you will always be the most brilliant and most wonderful man I have ever had the privilege to know."

Holmes leaned forward and pressed his forehead to Watson's. Despite the mounting fear, despite the anxiety, despite the danger, the words calmed him. "Doctor Watson," he said, "again, you are my rock in a choppy sea."

"And so long as you live I shall remain just that," Watson promised.

They kissed and Holmes felt safe. His hands wandered to the back of his neck and he stepped forward so their bodies pressed together.

"Blimey!" said the Doctor just as the room filled with a small, rapid beeping. "Wow, that's a lot of power. That is a _phenomenal_  amount of power. That's a thousand times the power it takes to run a space station like this! Why does it need so much power?"

"Look there," Mycroft said, pointing to the screen. "The majority of the power is being routed to one particular dock."

"I noticed that too," the Doctor said, sounding grim. "What could possibly be on Dock 12 that's chewing up so much energy?"

"I suggest we find out. Doubtlessly, we are already being searched for and we don't have any time to lose."

"Agreed. Whatever it is, I'm sure it's the heart of the matter. Holmes, Watson, we need to get going."

Holmes smoothed out Watson's waistcoat before he turned to face the Doctor. "Aren't you worried that you'll be walking into a trap? Surely the emperor knows that you'll show up to this singular location eventually."

"Holmes, I'm going to share a secret with you," the Doctor said as he put both his hands on his shoulders and gazed meaningfully into his eyes. "I actually have no idea what I'm doing."

"At last, he admits it!" Watson cried.

"I just sort of fly into adventures by the seat of my pants and tell myself I've got a plan, but that's just to keep anyone who happens to be around me from panicking. But in the time you've known me, has this ever let you down?"

Holmes sighed heavily. "No," he admitted, "I suppose it hasn't."

"Then trust me. I've been in stickier situations before and made it out! But just in case, here."

The Doctor produced Holmes's katana and Watson's rifle from the pockets of his jacket and handed them out appropriately.

"Mycroft, have you got something to defend yourself?" asked the Doctor.

In response, Mycroft held up his walking stick and used it to break a fist-sized hole in the metal wall.

"Right, good!"

"And what about you, Doctor?" Holmes asked. "Do you have something to defend yourself?"

"I've got the three of you and a sonic screwdriver. I'm absolutely sorted. Well, come on, then! We have ourselves a mystery to unravel!"

 

o :: o :: o

 

He was so close. He'd sacrificed half a millennium of blood, sweat and tears for this moment, and he would not let it fail.

In the back of his mind, he knew that it always came down to proving himself. There was a time when that fact alone would have been enough to send him paralytic with shame and bitterness, but after 500 years, he had become immune to the sting. He'd spent his entire life proving that he could surpass every limit put to him.

Too poor. Too strange. Too weak.

Objectively, it was petty. But anger was just as efficient a motivator as any other, and it had brought him this far, right to the cusp of his final destiny. By day's end, there wouldn't be a soul in the universe who could say a word against him.

Dock 12 was pitch black. He waited in the observation room high above, reclined in his chair, with his long nails drumming on the arm.

Patience… he'd had it for 500 years, and he could wait a few more minutes.

"Your Excellency?"

It was Corporal Streya, of course. He recognized her voice. He liked Streya; she was just as bloodthirsty and ruthless as he was. He had big plans for her once his own plot came to fruition.

"Corporal," he said, "what can I do for you?"

"The troops are getting antsy."

"You have your orders, Corporal. I expect you to hold to them."

"But just to  _wait?_ " she pressed him urgently. "Calling off the search parties was preposterous enough, but do you really think they'll just waltz into your trap?"

"Oh, Streya," the emperor purred, "I  _know_  they will. It's what makes the Doctor who he is. He'll walk into the plot knowing that it's there, with the impossible and irrational belief that he'll work his way out of it. In his defense, he has a sterling track record to back it up, but, like everyone else, he will make the mistake of underestimating me."

His long, thin hands flexed and writhed on the arms of the chair. His heart was thumping so wildly he almost couldn't stand it. He was  _so close_.

Streya, for her part, didn't answer. He heard her walk forward, and she eventually came into view when she stopped by the observation window, looking into the darkened room.

"You realize, of course, that I'm operating on faith," Streya said. "I don't like doing that."

"And you won't have to for much longer," he assured her. "In just a few scarce hours, the universe as you know it will change forever."

She looked good in her sharp golden uniform, with her dark hair in a tight bun and her freckles muted in the dull ambient light. The emperor had never had time for things as ridiculous as romance, but if he'd ever had to love someone, it would have been someone like Streya.

"You have everything in place for the fallout, I trust?" the emperor asked.

"Twenty million strong standing ready," she answered, as if it weren't such a staggering number, "and we have our best technicians analyzing the felled ship the Doctor left behind."

"Have you been able to get inside?"

"Unfortunately not, Your Excellency; whatever's keeping it locked is stronger than we anticipated. But I'm told we're getting good readings from the outside."

"Still, a pity. I would have liked to see it from the inside."

He rose from his seat and stood next to her, and together they looked down into the darkness. They could only just make out the haziest outline of the behemoth of a machine as it hummed and rotated in the middle of the room.

"If I may, Your Excellency," Streya began after a lapse of silence, "what is it specifically that makes you so sure the Doctor will come through that door?"

"You've read the legends about him as much as I have, Corporal. It's who he is. He's hardwired to respond to any threat to the universe, and I'd wager that by now he sees me as a growing danger if nothing else."

She looked at him, curious but detached. "Is that really what you want, Your Excellency?" she asked. "You never struck me as the type who wanted to watch the world burn."

He didn't answer immediately. He pressed one long, thin hand to the cool glass, right over the machine.

"I don't want to watch it burn," he replied slowly. "I could do it better, you know."

"Do what, Sir?"

"I could be a better god than any mythos. I could be mightier than the god of Purganon, greater than the god of Abraham. I could put to shame the Great Old Ones. I could be powerful and merciful. I could turn the universe into something better. I can. I  _will_."

Streya watched him silently through sharp black eyes as the emperor's hands balled into tight fists of tense anticipation. His long, thin limbs shook with growing anxiety.

"Soon," he whispered. "So very soon."

Streya didn't say anything that was on her mind, but that didn't surprise the emperor. She was very good at minding her place and always had been. It was one of the many things he liked about her.

"And what about Holmes?" she asked. "You've spent so much time focused on the Doctor, that I think it's fair to say you might be underestimating Holmes. He is, after all, the greatest genius the universe has ever seen."

"So the story goes," he said as he recovered from his clutching anticipation and smoothed out his white, gilded robes. "Still, the honey's in the trap and it should all work out. I think even Holmes isn't immune."

"Sir," she said, and he looked down. A small pool of light had formed by the door, so small that it looked more like a smudge of yellow on a sea of black. Four figures emerged carefully through the darkness, feeling their way closer to the center of the room. "They're here."

"Right on schedule," the emperor purred. "Give the order to release the slouchers."

"At once, Sir," she said, before she spun on the ball of her foot and walked out of the room.

The emperor was left alone, watching with a hammering heart as they moved closer and closer to their destiny, and to the destiny of the entire universe. His blood ran hot and every sense was tough and taut as whipcord.

This was it, he thought. This was the beginning of the end.

 

o :: o :: o

 

"Good Lord, it's dark."

And it was, the Doctor thought. Oppressively so. With all the power flowing through this one room, one would have thought that some of it could have been spared for lights. He fished around in his pocket for a while before he came up with a small light orb that allowed them an unimpressively small pool of yellowish light.

"Why here?" Holmes wondered aloud. "Why this room, specifically?"

"There you are, Doctor!" boomed a voice from everywhere. "I was beginning to think you'd keep me waiting!"

It was the emperor, of course. And all at once, they heard the soft rushing of air from all directions. Watson's grip on his rifle tightened and Holmes unsheathed his katana. Though it may very well have been the Doctor's imagination, he could have sworn that the ambient temperature dropped several degrees. And there was the faintest sound… the sound of hissing.

"I'd never be so rude," the Doctor said bravely. "Why don't you come on out and we can talk face to face?"

"All in good time," the emperor said, morbidly cheerful. "For now, say hi to my slouchers."

"Slouchers—?" Watson began, but he was cut off by Holmes's abrupt cry.

When the Doctor turned, Holmes was being held by both arms, in the vise-like grip of two enormous, crooked creatures. They were thin as lathes and black as pitch, with oblong heads dominated by sharp, jagged white teeth. Their limbs were long and bent, and every breath hissed from their chest.

"Let him go!" the Doctor cried.

"Yes, they're quite terrifying, aren't they?" the emperor said as Holmes thrashed wildly in the slouchers' grips. "I designed them myself and had them genetically engineered. They're wonderful servants, and they're so very  _good_ at keeping everyone in line."

One of the slouchers bent down and looked at the Doctor closely, his terrible teeth gnashing and his forked tongue twitching in its cavernous mouth.

"Take him up, boys, and get the others to the platform."

"No!" Watson cried. "Stop it! Let him go! Holmes!"

Six more slouchers descended upon Watson, Mycroft and the Doctor. Their hands were hard and cold as ice and despite their best efforts they couldn't escape their grip. The three of them were pulled onto an immense platform beneath a large metal machine hanging overhead.

"Do you want to know the best part about my plan, Doctor?" the emperor said as the slouchers held them in place. "I mean, the really  _beautiful_  part about it? I based the entire thing on knowing the truest and purest essence of you. All I had to do was set it up just right and you fell in line simply because it's who you are. I tuned it all specifically to you, and you reacted perfectly!"

"Just let him go—" the Doctor began.

"I mean, did you really think I  _lost_  in each of our little tête-à-têtes? Do you think I had you kill all of my operatives on Pleistocene earth because I was simply that inept? Do you think the evacuation warning on my ships over Noxasia simply weren't working, and that's why everyone on board died when you fired upon them?"

The Doctor was silent, his face screwed in confusion.

"I designed the traps specifically so you  _would_  kill them," the emperor said, his voice low and gushing with black mirth. "I wanted to rip apart your conscience. I wanted you to hate yourself as much as you possibly could and I wanted it all fresh in your mind for this moment."

The platform on which they stood was suddenly flooded with light. The machine above them hummed to life.

"FIVE PERCENT," the machine buzzed.

"No prison can hold the Doctor, after all," the emperor said. "No prison but the one he makes for himself! All the guilt throughout your life, Doctor, everyone you've ever killed – how heavily does it weigh on your heart?"

"TEN PERCENT."

"Guilt is a paralytic, Doctor. And with an emotional amplifier, I'll be sure that it will be irreversible!"

The Doctor looked up at the machine. It was on a charging cycle, but he knew at once what it meant.

"Just sit back and think about it, Doctor, about all the blood on your hands. And my machine will make sure that no other thought will ever cross your mind again!"

"You can't do this," the Doctor said.

"Oh, but I can. Actually, I am. And while that warms up, I bring your attention to downstage center!"

Another light source flooded the room. The wind picked up. In the very center of the chamber, in an immense, flat, glass cylindrical container, was—

"The black hole," the Doctor said. "The one I saw in the diagram!"

"That's what all the power's for," Mycroft said slowly. "It's being routed in here to contain the raw power of a black hole."

"But that means…" The Doctor suddenly felt very cold. "You – Emperor, you're trying to create a Rassilon Star!"

A thrashing Holmes was tugged up a set of stairs that curved around to the top of the cylinder. The fierce wind blew his hair and coat madly, and the slouchers held him steadfastly in place as the emperor emerged on the far side of the cylinder.

"The raw power of a singularity can't be manipulated in and of itself," the emperor said. "And oh, how widely the legends vary! What does it take to make a Rassilon Star? After five hundred years, I now have my answer!"

"No," the Doctor cried. "No! Don't!"

"Holmes?" Watson said. "You think Holmes can do this impossible thing?"

"The greatest genius in the universe will open the Eye of God!" the emperor cried. " _Slouchers! Prepare him!_ "

Holmes, screaming and writhing in the slouchers' iron grip, was hoisted onto a metal hook and slowly lifted over the top of the captured black hole.

"THIRTY-FIVE PERCENT."

"Holmes!" Watson called desperately.

"Listen to me!" the Doctor said.

"Oh, it's gone a bit beyond that," the emperor teased.

"Not you! Holmes! Listen to me!"

Still jerking in the bonds that kept him attached to the hook, Holmes looked across at the Doctor, his face streaked with fear.

"Holmes," the Doctor said, "I'm so sorry. I don't have time to explain everything you need to know!"

"Doctor!" Holmes cried, continuing to thrash. "Watson!"

"FIFTY PERCENT."

"It's going to hurt," the Doctor said, his voice full of heartbreak, "but it won't last forever."

Holmes had given up struggling in lieu of trembling silently as he was lowered into the top of the cylinder.

"I'm so sorry," the Doctor said. "I'm so sorry!"

" _Release him now!_ " the emperor roared, and Holmes fell, hard and swift, into the twisting black vortex.

" _No!_ " Watson cried, hot tears stinging his eyes.

"SEVENTY FIVE PERCENT."

It was hard to hear anything over the roar that the machine made at that moment. But the Doctor could clearly hear the sound of Holmes's desperate, pained scream.

And then, just barely visible through the rattling, tempered glass, there was an explosion of golden light. Sherlock Holmes had begun to regenerate.


	12. The Eye of God

Over the course of less than a minute, three very important things happened one after the other.

First, after several worryingly long moments, Mycroft was able to send hot, focused beams of light in all directions, breaking out from jagged cracks along his skin. They were powerful enough to send the four slouchers holding him and Watson collapsing to the floor. Mycroft then vaulted off the dais towards the console at the bottom of the machine in which Holmes was still trapped. As he did so, Watson recovered his rifle again and easily began picking off the slouchers that came to stop him.

Second, the emotional amplifier over the Doctor's head finished charging, and with a monstrous roar, the air around him was filled with a bright blue floodlight. There was not any physical catharsis to follow, however; all he did was collapse, first onto his knees, and then onto his side.

Third, and thanks solely to Mycroft's interference, Holmes was launched out of the Eye and fell, with a resounding crash, onto the floor not far from where Watson stood. His limbs were still glowing bright golden and his body arced and twisted in a strange, unknowable rhythm.

"What's happening to him?" Watson asked, hurrying to his side. "Mycroft! What's going on?"

"Stay back," Mycroft said gravely, pulling Watson away by his sleeve. "Don't interfere."

"At least tell me what's happening to him," he begged. "Is he going to be all right?"

"In a manner of speaking."

Far above them, there came the wailing grind of machinery. The massive metal monstrosity that housed the Eye of God was rattling with such intensity that it threatened to tear apart the entire room in its wake. Down from the high ceiling descended a small apparatus that began to close around the emperor.

"Today," he roared, "I become a God!"

Nimaidi was then entirely enclosed in the strange machine, and the roaring only increased in intensity.

"We don't have much time left," Mycroft said. "Can you feel that, Dr. Watson? The resonance through the floor?"

Though Watson said nothing, he could feel it all too well.

"An army is coming. Ten thousand strong at least. We must get back to the TARDIS."

"I will not take a single step without Holmes," Watson said.

He looked back down at him purposefully, but staggered back in astonishment at what he saw. Lying where Holmes was once was a completely different man. He was a few inches shy of Holmes's regal six-foot-one but even more rail-thin. His head was a mess of loose, pitch black curls, which fell to frame a pale, angular face with high cheekbones that were sharp enough to cut glass. If it had not been for the fact that he was still wearing Holmes's waistcoat and trousers, he would have thought that he'd been replaced with a stranger when Watson had looked away.

Mycroft did not seem to share his astonishment. He stooped down next to him and shook him by both shoulders.

"Wake up," he said. "We need to get out of here."

The stranger in Holmes's clothes opened his eyes and stared around, taking quick stock of his surroundings. He pulled himself to his feet, but nearly collapsed straight away, only catching himself on Mycroft's outstretched arm.

"Something went wrong," Mycroft observed.

"Yes," said the stranger in Holmes's clothes, "but we'll deal with that later. Don't fuss; I can walk. Carry the Doctor. We have to get back to the TARDIS."

Mycroft nodded and went to pick the Doctor up, who was limp in his arms.

"Who are you?" Watson asked in a hollow, shaking voice. The stranger cast him a sidelong look, and for a second he seemed almost sad.

"I'll explain everything at first opportunity," he said. "I need you, Watson. I need you to keep any slouchers that may come upon us at bay until we make it back to the TARDIS. Can you do that?"

Watson's hands flexed around the barrel of his rifle. This was coming at him very fast – almost too fast – but he had learned to adjust quickly. He nodded, and the stranger nodded back. When Mycroft returned, he had the Doctor thrown over one shoulder, and together they hurried from the room.

They seemed to go mostly unnoticed throughout the first half of their journey back to the TARDIS. But when they came to the wide hangar in which they'd landed, they were met with an army.

The sheer number of soldiers that surrounded them was staggering. Watson could not even begin to estimate the number, but it must have been nearly a hundred thousand – all of them in sleek black leather, all of them with weapons primed. The door through whence they'd come abruptly slammed shut.

The stranger in Holmes's clothing was quick to put himself between the army and their conquest.

"Well, well, well," came a female voice from the crowd, "this  _is_  interesting."

The sea of soldiers parted for her. She was tall, her dark hair in a taut bun, her face covered in scattered freckles. Her uniform was sharp and reflective gold, and the hard soles of her shoes clicked on the metal floor.

"Good evening, commander," greeted the stranger in Holmes's clothing.

"Corporal," she corrected. "Corporal Streya. I'll admit, this was not what we expected to happen when we threw you into the Eye."

"I'm glad I was able to surprise you."

"So what are you, then?" she asked, canting her head to one side. "What species?"

The stranger made a series of chiding  _tsk-tsk-tsk_  sounds. "You really have not done your research. All this pomp and circumstance, but in the end, it was sort of slapdash, wasn't it?"

Streya seemed, more than anything, amused. "You're going to mouth off to 500,000 soldiers with guns?"

"Would it speed things along if I resorted to ad hominem? It's not beneath me. I could make a comment about how that uniform of yours makes you look like cheap jewelry."

Streya sighed. "Well, I was hoping to get some answers out of you," she admitted, "but my orders were just to kill you. Very well."

"What the hell are you doing?" Watson hissed.

"Relax, Watson," the stranger said.

"Fire!"

Watson reflexively hit the deck. 500,000 soldiers fired all at once, short bursts of red energy all converging onto the stranger. He was thrown back several steps, but incredibly, he held his footing. After nearly twenty seconds of unceasing onslaught, still he stood, even after Streya called off the assault.

"My turn," the stranger said.

There then came an explosion of golden light so powerful that every person in the mile-wide hangar was knocked flat to the ground in a wave radiating out from the epicenter.

"Run," the stranger said. "Run!"

The TARDIS stood amidst the pile of groaning, shifting bodies on the floor. The three of them took off towards it, weaving through the arms and legs and bursting through to safety.

The stranger slammed the door shut and locked it.

"What the  _hell_  was that?" Watson demanded. "What did you just do to them?"

"We have more pressing issues," the stranger said. "Mycroft, set him down just here."

Mycroft gingerly laid the Doctor down on the floor of the console room. His eyes were open but his body was limp, almost as if he was catatonic. Watson frowned and knelt down next to him, taking one of his hands into his own and pressing down on a nail.

"He's responsive to pain," Watson said. "He's conscious, he's just not…"

"He was hit with an emotional amplifier," the stranger said.

"If I were to hazard a guess," Mycroft chimed in, "I would say that what he's experiencing is the full and true weight of oppressive, crushing guilt."

Mycroft looked back at the stranger, who was in turn watching the Doctor. The stranger was looking almost heartbroken.

"You know what this means, I trust," Mycroft said.

"I'll worry about it later," he said. "We need a plan."

"No," Watson said.

"No?"

" _No,_ " he said again. "Not another word until I have answers. Who are you? Where is Sherlock Holmes?"

Mycroft and the stranger exchanged a tragic, knowing look.

"Do you want me to explain it?" Mycroft asked.

"No," the stranger said slowly. "No, he should hear it from me. He deserves that much."

Watson's hand was clenching so tightly that his nails had broken the skin of his palm, and tiny droplets of blood were squeezing out between his fingers. "Is he dead?" Watson asked. "Is Holmes dead?"

"It's a complicated answer," said the stranger. "Yes, but also no."

"Don't speak in riddles," Watson said, his voice low and harsh. "This is the man I love. Speak clear and plain."

The stranger swallowed.

"The man you call Sherlock Holmes – the  _physical_  man – is dead. But everything he was, everything he ever learned, felt, saw and experienced, is still alive. Sherlock Holmes is a part of me. In a way, he  _is_  me."

Watson did not realize it, but his hands were shaking. "I don't understand."

The stranger stepped forward, closing the gap between Watson and himself. "Did you ever wonder why he never had any childhood stories?" he asked. "Why all his memories beyond just a few years before he met you were vague and uncoordinated? Did it not strike you as bizarre that he'd never heard of the boogeyman?"

"What are you getting at?"

"Sherlock Holmes was not born. He was  _created_. He was generated to be a human host for – well, for the physical template of a Time Lord."

The shaking that started in Watson's hands overtook the rest of his body. His vision suddenly swam from the tears that rimmed his eyes.

"You…" he began. "Sherlock Holmes was…"

"It's called a Chameleon Arc," he said. "It takes the physical form of a Time Lord and transforms it into another species – human, in this case. Then the essence of the Time Lord is stored in an external apparatus. It's usually a fob watch, but for me, it was Mycroft."

Watson looked at Mycroft, but only for a moment. Soon he was looking back at the stranger.

"What you mean to tell me," Watson said, "is that Sherlock Holmes, the greatest man I ever knew, the man I loved, was a lie?"

"No," he said, stepping forward and grabbing Watson urgently by the shoulders. "No, not at all. All of the things he did and felt are real. They will never be undone."

"But he's dead." The word was like led on his tongue. Holmes – dead? How could he go through this again?

"He's…"

The stranger hesitated.

"Time Lords do not die, they regenerate. When one body dies, a new one is created. New body, new personality, new habits, but same memories. This new cycle, in some ways, is like a newborn child. They are a product of equal parts their nature and their nurture. I don't know who I am yet, but I can tell you this much:

"Everything Sherlock Holmes was is in here still, somewhere. I have not forgotten everything he's done and felt. The only part of this new cycle of which I am absolutely certain is the part of me that still loves  _you_."

The emotion was nearly enough to knock Watson flat. His heart felt as if it might explode in his chest, whether from joy or sadness or some terrible combination of the two he did not know. The look on the stranger's face was so earnest, and in some ways, so very like Holmes.

Watson reached up and touched a hand to his chest. He could feel the steady thumping of two hearts beneath his hand.

"What should I call you?" Watson asked through the surge of emotion.

Smiling tragically, he responded, "Holmes, if it helps."

"No," said Watson, shaking his head. "No, the Holmes I knew is dead. Who were you, before you were Sherlock Holmes?"

"I was the First Tribunal of the High Council of Rassilon," he said. "I have a few names, but I was most commonly called the Visionary."

"The Visionary…" Watson wetted his lips. "It's a bit long."

They laughed together, and for the first time Watson felt some sense of respite.

"I'll tell you what, you can just call me Astell," he said.

"Astell? All right, then. Astell it is." Watson paused. "It's an almost feminine name, isn't it?"

The stranger – Astell – frowned suddenly. "Yes," he said, "it's a long story. I wasn't always male."

"Wh—what?"

"It's really not important," Astell said. "And we have more pressing issues to attend to."

"Yes," Mycroft suddenly chimed back in, "like finding a way to save the Doctor from himself."

Astell cast a disenchanted look at the Doctor, who was still lying against the railing, half-curled in on himself and still as death.

"It's just guilt," Astell said flatly.

"It's much more than just guilt," Mycroft said. "It's debilitating. Thanks to the emotional amplifier, it's made him one step above a vegetable."

"We should find a way to fix it," Watson agreed.

Astell crossed to the console and began tapping at a few keys. "I can handle it," he said. "Why use two Time Lords for a job that only requires one?"

"My Lord," Mycroft said grimly, "I think finding a way to help the Doctor recuperate should be at the top of our list of priorities. It is thanks to him that you were able to recover your true form."

"It's thanks to him that Gallifrey is gone."

Mycroft and Watson were silent.

"Oh, yes," Astell said acidly, "did you think I hadn't put the pieces together? I was there, or did you forget? I was there when he used the Moment and committed two counts of genocide. I watched two of the mightiest civilizations in the universe wink out of existence. I saw it happen  _before it happened_ , and then had to watch it again. If it hadn't been for you, Mycroft, I would have died with the rest of them. So please forgive me if I'm not jumping at the chance to relieve his guilt."

He went back to the TARDIS console. Watson and Mycroft exchanged uneasy looks, and several seconds of tense silence passed.

"There were extenuating circumstances—" Mycroft began.

" _Do not talk to me about extenuating circumstances!_ " Astell roared. "I know exactly what happened, Mycroft, and I am telling you that I  _do not care_. He committed  _genocide_ , and not just on the Daleks, but on his own people!"

Mycroft became very quiet. Astell's shoulders shook with rage and sorrow and hatred.

"That… that is inexcusable. I don't care what circumstances there were. I don't care."

He spent a while at the console, flipping up switches and pulling levers as Mycroft and Watson stood in nervous silence. No one saw that silent tears were running down the Doctor's face.

"Then what do you propose we do, My Lord?" Mycroft asked eventually.

Astell's anger seemingly abated, he adjusted his cravat and pulled down the TARDIS's hand brake. "Well, what do we need? Answers. Who do we ask? Since the emperor himself seems a bit busy, I'd wager a guess that the next best person to ask is that corporal we just ran into. What's standing between us and her? That."

Astell pointed to the TARDIS screen. Watson and Mycroft circled around and saw the external camera focused on a fleet of sleek silver ships hovering in formation in front of a massive space station.

"If she's as good of a commander as she seems to think she is, then she'll be in one of those ships."

"Good Lord," Watson said. "There must be thousands of them!"

"What is your strategy for finding the correct one?" Mycroft asked.

Astell cast Watson a sidelong look, and Watson could almost detect the hint of a smile.

"An old trick," he said.

 

o :: o :: o

 

The public channel open between all the ships was not as busy as it usually was. The greenhorns, Verix suspected, were probably too nervous to use it during a code blue, even if they were idle. But the old salts like him were still chatting away, and that was enough to keep him from going blind from boredom.

"The thing is," said Gamma-8.29 (whose real name was Bakely, if he recalled right), "the thing is, how can we be sure, you know? This is the Doctor. The legendary warrior who's toppled civilizations. How can we be sure one little emotional amplification ray will work on him?"

"Shut up, eight-two-nine," said Omega-12.93, who Verix was starting to like.

"Don't tell me to shut up. It's a valid point."

"No it isn't," Verix chimed in. "Look at it from where we're standing. We have two possible sequences of events, here: one, the Doctor's incapacitated and we win by default, or he's not and we fight and lose. Either way, I see no point in getting worked up about it."

"Really?" came a new voice, with no visible registration. "Those are the  _only_  two options?"

Omega-12.93's voice came through, sounding angry: "Who the hell are you? This is a restricted frequency."

"Finally, someone asks!" the new voice said. "Your commander was getting all worked up about  _what_  I was that she never bothered to ask my name. I was actually pretty offended. In any case, it's my very good pleasure to meet you. My name is the Visionary, but my friends call me Astell."

"Will one of the techs please try to track this yahoo's signal?" Verix said impatiently.

"Oh, I wouldn't bother with that," said Astell. "I've deadlocked my transmitter. Besides, I'll be gone long before it even occurs to you who I might be in relation to this whole mess. I just wanted to drop in and say hi to you all – especially to you, Corporal Streya. I know you're listening."

"The hell do you want out of this?" asked Omega-12.93.

"My, you're getting awfully testy. But if you insist on jumping in, I suppose I can arrange that. All I wanted was to say hi to Streya one last time before I did this."

There came suddenly an explosion so immense that the nearby cruisers – including Verix's – rocked from the force of the impact. The public channel was suddenly alive with yelled requests for status reports and damage specs. It continued for almost thirty seconds before the voice chimed in again:

"And there we go," Astell said. "What you felt was actually my ship's lasers hitting a nearby asteroid, but thanks to everyone who played and tapped in to cruiser 28-Circle-0 to check on Commander Streya! She's perfectly fine, in case you're wondering. For now at least."

"Diamond formation," came Streya's voice suddenly. "Scan for the source of—" But just as abruptly as it appeared, it vanished.

"Thanks, kids!" said Astell cheerfully. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to interrogate your commander."

Verix's screen suddenly fizzled out. The public channel had been taken offline. He sat for several seconds in baffled silence as he wondered what to do.

 

o :: o :: o

 

When Corporal Streya awoke, her head was swimming and she was strapped to a chair. The light above her was blindingly white and flooded every corner of the room. She found herself squinting to keep the headache at bay.

Her eyes adjusted slowly, and when she recognized the man sitting across from her, she couldn't help but laugh. It was almost poetic.

"Well, then," she said, "here we are."

"Here we are," Astell said.

"Gravity pump," Sterya recalled as the fog in her mind began to clear. "You pulled my cruiser into a gravity pump. I didn't know that sort of technology was out of speculative phase."

"My people invented gravity," said Astell, smiling. "Literally."

Streya cocked her head to one side. "What are you?" she asked. "Really."

"It's cute that you think I owe you any answers," he countered, rising from his chair and sliding it away. "Shall we get down to business, Corporal?"

"What, then? Are you going to torture me? I should warn you that I've been trained to withstand it."

"Torture? Goodness me, no," he said. "I would never stoop so low. Besides, I have much more efficient ways of extracting information from you."

Astell put one hand over her forehead, and Streya took in a sharp breath. She could feel him probing through her mind. His presence was burning so brightly that it was physically painful, and she began to cringe and writhe.

"I've put most of it together already," said Astell as he searched through her mind. "I get that Nimaidi was trying to make a Rassilon Star, and it seems he succeeded. He forced me to regenerate by tearing off my Chameleon Arc as I fell into the event horizon, and the expelled artron energy was forced into the singularity, creating a Rassilon Star. But what I don't understand is the end game. A Rassilon Star has enough power to fuel an unstoppable army fifty times this size, so what's he doing with it?"

"Get out," Streya hissed as she thrashed in the bonds that held her. "Get out of my head!"

" _Oh,_ " said Astell gravely. "He's not funneling it into the army at all, is he?"

"Stop it!"

"He's trying to  _absorb_  it. He wants to absorb the heart of a Rassilon Star."

" _Stop it!_ "

Streya thrashed away with such force that her chair toppled onto one side, clattering to the floor. Astell opened his eyes and looked down at her disdainfully.

"And you're okay with this? He wants to become a god and it doesn't bother you in the slightest?"

Streya lay still and silent on the floor, her chest heaving.

"Hired muscle," Astell said disparagingly. "For enough money, you'll sit back and watch a madman undergo apoptosis. He could destroy the universe with that sort of power. He could destroy  _you!_ "

"He won't," Streya hissed. "He wouldn't. He's absorbing the power right now and there's nothing you can do to stop him."

"Don't be too hasty in drawing that particular conclusion, Corporal," Astell said. "If my math is right, I've still got two hours until he's finished. A lot can happen in two hours."

Astell turned on a heel to leave, but Streya's voice echoed again:

"I would have thought a Time Lord would have more sympathy for his situation."

He stopped in the doorway, silently listening.

"Yes, I figured it out," she said. "After that little mind trick, it wasn't hard to figure out what you are. Time Lord."

"What situation?" Astell asked. "What are you talking about?"

"The Time Lord didn't recognize it when it was right in front of his face? That's disappointing."

Astell turned around. Streya's tight black bun had fallen into uneven rows of black curls across the floor, and she kept writhing in her bonds.

"He's the last child of Ascinta, or didn't you notice?" Streya taunted. "One of the greatest civilizations in the universe – a rival to even your own, as I recall. After the Great Collapse, he's the only one left."

Astell could feel her gaze burning holes through his back. The full gravity of the situation hit him with the force of a wrecking ball.

"And what would you call that, Time Lord?" asked Streya, her voice dark and languid like venom. "That would be genocide, wouldn't it? And isn't that a fitting end?"

His hand tightened around the doorframe. He stared down at the floor. The voices of the dead, the lost children of Gallifrey, were screaming at him. Visions of Ascinta flashed in his mind: the mighty towers, the silver seas, the shining city of Othrethos.

He thought about all the history of that great civilization and everything it had contributed. He thought of how it all came down to one man, the only surviving member of the species.

There was the impossible decision: sickening, horrifying, and unwaveringly necessary.

Astell's thoughts went back to the Doctor, and the sudden, bitter clarity was the worst thing he had ever felt.


	13. Deicide

"Doctor…"

This, he thought, was hell. It must have been. Cold and empty and nothing less than he deserved.

"Listen, Doctor. I know you can hear me."

The figure was blurry somehow, as if in soft focus. He was leaning over him, and through it all he felt a hand on his arm.

"How long has it been like this? How long have you hated yourself?"

He'd thought it was a fever dream – one of hell's cruel tricks to make him think he wasn't alone. Now here it was again, a vision from his past. It was a new face, but he recognized the Time Lord underneath.

"Astell," he whispered. "Visionary."

"I'm so sorry, Doctor," Astell said. "Please know I didn't mean what I said. My Chameleon Arc had just broken, and I was so angry. Gallifrey was gone and I took my pain out on you."

The hand on his arm moved up to his face. Astell was closer now, close enough so he could see the new face, backlit by the ambient light of the TARDIS console room.

"I understand now. I understand all too well, actually. You did the best you could with an impossible situation, and I forgive you."

With those simple words, something heavy on his chest lifted. Years of self-hatred and guilt began to evaporate. His vision became blurry again.

"Because that's what you've been waiting for, isn't it?" Astell whispered. "All those years, you were waiting to be forgiven by another Time Lord. Well, here I am, Doctor. A child of Gallifrey, just like you, looking you in the eyes and saying  _you are forgiven_. It was the only thing you could do."

His face was so hot. Tears, he belatedly realized, were pouring down his face. He choked on something, and only after a few confused moments did he realize that it was a sob working its way up his throat.

"Don't cry," Astell said. "Please don't cry. I need your help, Doctor. You have to get up now. We have to work together."

The shackles on his mind were so heavy, and breaking them seemed impossible. But this was Astell, the Visionary, who was asking for his help. Refusing was even more impossible than stagnation.

"Get up, Doctor," he whispered, placing his hands on either side of the Doctor's head. "Get up, please. I need you."

It would have been so easy to slip off the edge into the oblivion that still beckoned him. He wanted to. In fact he deeply, thoroughly, desperately needed to.

"I…" the Doctor began. "I can't…"

"You can. Doctor, you have to. Please."

His back arced and strained against the console room floor. The grip on him was ironclad, and breaking it would take a monumental force of will. A very real part of him knew he couldn't do it.

"I'll help you," came Astell's voice through the fog. "Let me in."

The sensation nearly took his breath away. It had been so long since he'd made a mental connection with another Time Lord that he'd almost forgotten what it felt like. Somewhere in the back of his mind he realized that he was sobbing with joy. After all these years, he wasn't alone.

 _On the count of three, you're going to stand up,_  said Astell through his mind.  _Together we can do it. Are you ready, Doctor?_

_Yes._

_One,_  he counted,  _two, three._

And it shattered like glass, the pieces clattering as they fell around him. Had the bonds been so frail? Had it been, all along, his guilt that was so stifling?

The Doctor rose slowly to his feet. The edges of his vision were soft, and the TARDIS console room was a hazy bronze that backlit Astell's face and put the bones of his face in sharp relief. It took him a moment for his eyes to adjust, and when he did, there was.

Still.

For a moment he'd thought that it had all been some terrible fever dream. But there he was. There they were, the last two children of Gallifrey, and he wasn't waking up in the final throes of some mirage, sweet throughout but bitter at the end.

"Astell," he said, before pulling him into his arms. Astell returned the embrace, burying his face in the side of his neck. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

"I know," Astell whispered, "and you've been sorry long enough."

There's a period just following a pure catharsis that is utterly and completely calming, like the first shafts of sunlight breaking through a raincloud. He let himself sink deep into the feeling, and he didn't let his grip on Astell falter.

"You're alive," the Doctor said.

"So are you," Astell replied.

The Doctor looked at him, with his eyes still red and his hands still shaking from the emotional fallout.

Astell handed him a kerchief from the sleeve of Holmes's coat. The Doctor peered at it as if at any moment it might leap out of his hands.

"I've never actually used one of these," he remarked, and it seemed strange.

"Really? For someone so invested in human culture?"

The Doctor spent a while fussing with it between his hands, but it never touched his face. "Do you know what's going to happen next?" he asked. "Can you see it?"

"Yes," Astell said mildly.

"Are you going to tell me?"

"You know how it works, Doctor," Astell said. "We're a part of Events. Telling you would break the time flow and blow a hole in the universe."

"You should change out of those clothes," the Doctor said.

"Why?"

"Because they aren't yours. And because it's hard to look at."

Astell looked down at the waistcoat, which was now ill fitting and drooping to his hips.

"I'll change soon," he said. "Once I've told you the plan."

"Oh," said the Doctor, smiling sadly, "there's a plan, is there?"

"Of course there's a plan."

 

o :: o :: o

 

"You're handling everything very well," Mycroft said after a few moments of silence. The two of them were sitting at the end of the hallway that opened into the chamber of the Eye.

"I'm really not," Watson said. "I'm just holding it together until this is all over."

Mycroft sneered and adjusted the weight of the gun on his hip.

"He still loves you, you know," said Mycroft. "Regeneration doesn't change everything."

"Am I meant to take advice from a machine disguising itself as a member of the British government?"

"No, you're meant to take advice from a being who's been with Astell since he was small. Watson.  _Watson_."

He looked over at Mycroft, whose face was soft but urgent. His gray eyes bore into him.

"He  _loves_  you," he said. "As much as he always has. Probably more, now that he has a new perspective. You're free to do as you like, but leaving him would hurt him as much as it would have hurt Sherlock Holmes."

"But he's not Holmes anymore," Watson said slowly. "He said it himself. He's someone else."

"He also said that a new regeneration is often a condition of its environment. I don't imagine it will be so different from the man you knew. He wants you to be happy."

Watson looked forward. The hallway stretched on indefinitely, and every now and then a light sputtered and flickered.

"I could never leave him," Watson said. "Even when I thought he was dead, a part of me was still waiting. I always will, I think. Even if he's a different man…" Watson's hands wrung on the barrel of his rifle and he moved his weight back and forth between either foot. "He said that nothing could make what we did less valid or less real. I believe him. Nothing can take away those times, and nothing can tear me away from him."

"They're coming," Mycroft said.

And they were, slouching down the hallway like liquid shadows, one kinked, gnarled limb after the other. They were crawling on all fours or scurrying across the wall, filling the hall with steadily growing inky blackness.

Watson hefted his rifle off his hip and cocked it.

"For you, Holmes," Watson said, "anything."

 

o :: o :: o

 

With a quick buzz from the sonic screwdriver, every light in the chamber of the Eye abruptly went out, but the grind of the machinery continued.

When the lights came back on, Astell was standing on the platform above the Eye. The black hole was still churning, still grinding, and its glass walls rattled with the threat of cracking under the strain. The metal apparatus which still held the emperor shook as well, but to a different frequency.

And then, the Eye started to disappear. First at the very tips, and then it began to swallow itself. The black hole shrunk down and down and down – a plate, a coin, the head of a pin – and then nothing. The cage that once held it became still as the grave.

Astell adjusted his collar. The dress shirt was long-sleeved and rich purple in color, and his trousers were pressed and black. Everything about him, from the top of his brushed hair to his shiny black shoes was new.

The machine holding the emperor descended from the ceiling and came to a rest in front of Astell on the platform. It opened slowly, releasing a rush of high-pressure air that sent Astell's hair tossing in the ensuing wind.

The emperor stepped out. His gait was loose and uncoordinated. His hands were rippling with a strange black energy.

He started to laugh. It was hoarse and humorless.

"I did it," Nimaidi said.

"Congratulations," Astell replied. "You executed a perfect plan and got exactly what you wanted."

"I'm a god."

Astell seemed, if anything, amused. "Yes."

Nimaidi looked up at him. "I can see everything."

"So can I," Astell said darkly.

The emperor became suddenly preoccupied with his hands. The black energy that shone around him was beginning to intensify. His eyes darkened to the same color.

"Isn't it always the way?" began Astell, who put his hands into his trouser pockets. "The age-old parable of the man who wanted too much. It always ends like this."

Cracks began to form in his skin, black and pulsing, starting on his palms and around his eyes. His entire body began to rumble and shake so furiously that the platform rattled in protest.

"Did you really think your body could contain the raw power of a singularity? Did you think that the expelled artron energy from my regeneration would be enough to make it a bearable force?"

"It hurts," the emperor said.

"I should think so."

Nimaidi looked up at him and for the first time Astell could see terror in his eyes.

"Help me," he said.

"Why?" Astell challenged. "Because you deserve it? Because you didn't mean for things to go this far? Because you're a genuinely good person?"

"Because I need your help."

Astell's face softened almost imperceptibly. "I can't help you," he said.

"I look through the Time Vortex and I see you," the emperor said, though the light was beginning to drain from his mouth as well. "You're like me."

"The difference is that my body is equipped to handle seeing it. But inside you is the untempered power of a supermassive black hole. That alone will rip you apart long before the Time Vortex drives you insane."

The emperor, beneath the dull roar of his body's breaking, started to tremble. He looked up at Astell with wide eyes and said, "I'm frightened," and for a moment Astell was almost tempted to feel sorry for him.

"I'd be frightened, too," he said. "But you've made your bed and you're going to lie in it to matter what happens."

The emperor's face contorted into anger and he bore his teeth, even as they started to dissolve away in his mouth. "I'm taking you with me! When I break apart, you'll die, too!"

"That's true," Astell said reasonably. "A supermassive black hole will tear its way out of you and it will probably consume this entire space station. Unless, of course, we have some sort of machine that can hold it in stasis."

Before he could respond, Astell grabbed the emperor by the collar of his shirt and threw him into the emptied glass chamber that had once held the Eye of God. Nimaidi landed with his limbs splayed and his skin beginning to tear apart.

"Your real colors show," said Astell disparagingly. "Funny how the threat of death will turn us into our most basic selves with our most fundamental motivations. With nothing else to turn to, you chose to threaten me. I'd say that's fairly telling, wouldn't you?"

The desperation was barely visible beneath the force that was devouring his body from the inside out. "I'm sorry," he said, though Astell could barely hear his voice because that, too, was being consumed. "Please help me!"

"Look into the Time Vortex. You know as well as I do that there's nothing that can help you."

His body began to crumple, his limbs cracking and rolling towards his middle in a grotesque and unnatural display.

"Is there an afterlife?" Nimaidi wondered with his fading voice.

"Hell if I know," said Astell. "Doctor, start it up."

The massive machine roared to life. The lid began to close, a clean glass slate sliding over Nimaidi as he crumpled into nothingness.

Astell watched, impassive, as the black hole reformed in its stasis chamber. It expanded slowly until it came to a steady turn in its cage.

"And so passes the mighty civilization of Ascinta," said Astell slowly.

The Doctor came up the stairs leading to the top of the stasis chamber. His hands were in his pockets and he wandered across the glass floor towards Astell, who was still on the platform a few inches higher.

"You did what you had to do," the Doctor told him.

"Yes," Astell replied.

"There wasn't even any other possible outcome," the Doctor told him.

"Yes," Astell replied.

"It won't stop hurting for a long time," the Doctor told him.

Astell shut his eyes.

"It does something to you," said the Doctor, "like tossing a rock into a pond. It churns and ripples for a while. And even when it goes back to normal, the rock is still there under the surface. It looks the same but it's changed forever. And for what it's worth, I'm sorry."

Astell didn't say anything

"I should have done it," the Doctor said.

"No, you shouldn't have."

"No," the Doctor agreed, "I shouldn't have."

A moment of silence passed between them.

"You're crying," the Doctor remarked.

Astell wiped away the tears and stuffed his hands back into his pockets. There was no time for it.

Beneath them, the machine began to rumble. It was loud enough and powerful enough to shake the very foundations of the starship and send them stumbling.

"It's malfunctioning," the Doctor said. "It wasn't built to sustain the creation of a black hole."

"Six minutes," Astell estimated.

"Run?'

"Run."

 

o :: o :: o

 

"Back!" Watson cried, firing into the mass of slouchers. "Back, you devils!"

"There are too many of them," Mycroft said as he felled two of them with one shot from his own rifle. "Where are they all coming from?"

A siren began to wail, loud enough to nearly deafen them. It chanted the word "EVACUATE" over and over and filled the room with a pulsing red floodlight. But it wasn't for several more moments that they became aware of a low, steady rumbling that spanned the entire length of the ship.

At that moment, the doors they had been guarding burst open and they were unceremoniously pulled through into the chamber and the doors slammed shut behind them. The slouchers on the other side scraped and pounded at the door as the Doctor deadlocked it shut.

"Watson," said Astell, smiling, "I'm glad to see you managed to hold up your end of the plan. And with flying colors, I see! The accuracy rating on your rifle shows a 88:1 hit-to-miss ratio."

"We need to get back to the TARDIS," the Doctor said. "The ship is going to start breaking apart and we shouldn't be around when it does."

They took off in a sprint through the hallways of the space station. The corridors were starting to warp towards the chamber of the Eye, turning what was once a straight run into a treacherous climb. The whole way they could hear the groaning and twisting of metal and the hiss of pipes that were wrenched open.

The TARDIS was in sight, perched precariously on a jagged metal ledge that dropped off into the underbelly of the ship, when Watson suddenly lost his footing. He fell with a cry, barely grabbing hold of a twisted metal railing.

"Watson!" Astell cried, skidding to a halt and running back towards him. He dangled his hand over the ledge, and when Watson reached up, his fingertips could only barely brush his.

"I can't reach," Watson said over the roar of the dying ship.

"Yes, you can," Astell said.

"You have to go on without me," he cried, "the integrity of the ship won't last much longer."

"John Watson, how dare you," said Astell, his eyes bright. "You would never leave me in such a state, and I would never do the same to you. Not my Watson."

It was at that moment that it seemed to click. In the middle of the catastrophe, the breaking ship in the void of space, with a black hole tearing at the bars of its cage, it suddenly made perfect and unshakable sense. Watson stared up into Astell's face, and he could see it. He could see the ghost of Holmes, his hand reaching towards him and his face shining.

"I would never leave you behind," he swore. "Now  _reach!_ "

With a mighty effort he threw his hand up a second time, and his palm slapped into Astell's. Gripped tightly, he was hauled up just as the rail he'd been holding onto collapsed into the abyss beneath him.

They ran into the TARDIS jus as the Doctor went circling the console. Immediately the engine started up, wailing and pulsing, and they rocketed out through the growing gap in the ceiling of the hangar until they were several miles off.

Watson and Astell pulled themselves to their feet and watched, awestruck, as the mighty starship erupted. The sound and the sight vanished abruptly, and the entire ship was suddenly consumed. There was nothing left but blackness.

"Skin of the teeth!" the Doctor said. "That's the saying, isn't it? Get out by the skin of your teeth. I'd say that's pretty much what happened there, wouldn't you? It's an odd saying, though. Teeth don't even have skin! At least not human teeth."

Astell looked to Watson and Watson looked back. The Doctor yammered on, but neither of them heard him.

Astell reached up and touched the side of Watson's face. Watson wanted to lean into the touch, but he resisted any reaction at all.

"I'm glad you're alive," Astell said.

"Likewise," Watson replied.

"You're all right?"

"Yes, yes. I'm fine. Yourself?"

"I'm really not very all right at all, but your presence – knowing you're all right – it helps. It does."

The Doctor was still talking. Watson and Astell were still not listening.

"How is it," Watson began, "that you continue to be the most extraordinary man I've ever met, even after everything we've seen? I've met Jesus Christ and somehow it isn't comparable."

Astell smiled. Watson found himself warmed to see it, and yet he was somehow sad.

"I should…"

"What?"

Watson drew back.

"The two of you—" he began, "—the last children of Gallifrey. You should go with the Doctor."

"I  _am_  with the Doctor," Astell said, frowning.

"There's no place for a human in this picture," Watson said. "The two of you deserve each other."

"I'm not going anywhere. Neither are you and neither is the Doctor."

"Astell, I—"

Abruptly, Astell seized Watson by the lapels of his coat and pulled him up into a kiss. It was so fierce and so passionate that it took Watson's breath away, literally and figuratively. The TARDIS seemed to melt away until all that was left was the moment, hanging by the thread of eternity.

"Ew," the Doctor said, "gross."

Astell pulled back, though only by a hair's breadth. His eyes were still shut as he whispered against Watson's lips: "I would never leave you behind."

"Astell—"

"I love you. I loved you as Sherlock Holmes and I love you as Astell. There is no force on heaven or earth that could ever change that, Watson."

"The Doctor—" he started.

"Will not be without me, and neither will you. You're a good man, Watson, but there's no need for self-sacrifice here. Stay."

Watson stared at him wonderingly. "I love you," he said.

"Obviously," Astell replied, smiling. "Oh, and one more thing, Watson."

Astell cast the Doctor a withering look before he leaned down to whisper into Watson's ear.

"Sherlock Holmes was asexual – a fact of his biology. But as you already know, my biology has changed."

Watson looked up at him and Astell smiled. This, Watson thought, would be one to remember.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, thanks for sticking it out this far!
> 
> I'd love to hear your feedback, so please leave a comment and let me know what you thought. It is like crack to me.


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